


Look Over Your Shoulder, I'll Be There

by Colourcodedbinders



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Family Feels, Friendship, Kids being dumb, Panic Attacks, Sort Of, Suicide, depictions of violence, lots of injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-19 16:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18138149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colourcodedbinders/pseuds/Colourcodedbinders
Summary: It starts as a simple enough gag: see how long he can manage to keep sneaking into Avengers Tower with his friends before Tony Stark notices. But when an unexpected gaggle of men wearing identical ugly navy blue suits and driving around in equally hideous blue cars join the mix, controlled by a guy with horrific fashion sense and the strength of twenty pumas, Peter has to suit up and do what he does best: superhero the hell out of it.And if it ends up being the hardest, scariest, most unplanned thing he's ever had to do? Well then that's no one's business but his. (And Tony's. Definitely also Tony's.)All chapters posted at once.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of months, a whole lot of tears, and a buttload of silent yelling later, I present to you: my contribution to the Irondad Big Band 2019! 
> 
> I had the pleasure of working with two artists for this big bang: and they've put together some amazing pieces! Here's [one of them.](https://illusionarypandemonium.tumblr.com/post/183508655039/hghfjdjss-its-been-so-long-since-the-start-of) The other will be linked to right here shortly, or you can always catch them on my [tumblr page.](https://colourcodedbinders.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Note: In this fic, Infinity War never happened (duh), Civil War was less depressing, and the Avengers Tower was never sold.
> 
> Acknowledgements at the end!

If one were to sit down and try to find the exact moment the ordeal first begins to unfold, to pinpoint the exact event that unleashes everything that’s led Peter Parker to this specific moment, dirt smudged down the length of his torn suit as he sits on the cold, marble floor, a steady hand rubbing his back in a move that is reminiscent of May while he cries into the firm chest against him, they’d come down to an inconspicuous Tuesday, barely just a couple of days earlier, at lunch.

It isn’t much, really. To the untrained, unaware eye, it might even seem like it’s nothing. Nothing but a routine meal of mashed potato goop and some sort of putrid purple thing that Lunch Lady Mrs. Truman swears is some type of salad on his and Ned’s matching trays as they make their way to the table they know is empty all the way in the far back of the room, right next to the alternate exit door, save for the familiar and ever mysterious - although thankfully more talkative - brunette that’s seated at its outer extremity. As always, MJ’s got a thick book in her hand, engrossed in it like he’s just recently gotten used to seeing her. Unsurprisingly, Peter realizes as the boys arrive at their seats, its title is not one he can recognize. Part of him tells him that he should probably expand his literature repertoire. The other part reminds him that he doesn’t really care enough about the English language to do so. Around her, the crowd of teenagers creates a ruckus that is strange to neither of them, with some guy yelling at the top of his lungs that strawberries are the devil’s raindrops while his girlfriend tries to wrestle him into sitting down, the tiny crowd surrounding them seemingly unbothered by the boy’s actions. At some point, a football somehow finds its way to MJ’s feet, but even then, she simply kicks the ball back, not bothering to look up from the page she’s on.

She doesn’t look like she’s much interested in the likes of them, but both he and Ned have learned in the past few months that her practiced indifference is her own, unique way of letting them know she cares. If she didn’t, he knows that she would have walked off. 

“You should probably eat lunch, you know,” Peter finally says from his spot across her, and it seems that the words catch her attention as she suddenly looks up, her expression even and unreadable, and shoves her book away. Ned takes the opportunity to jokingly wave at her when she looks to him, seated to her right, and she smiles in response. 

“If you consider that sad excuse for potato a ‘lunch’, Peter,” she retorts, “I’m re-evaluating everything about this friendship. It’s basically watered down flavoured powder. With extra water.”

“Good,” Ned pipes up. “Keeps you hydrated.”

Both Peter and MJ ignore the comment. It’s nothing new. And besides, when Ned brings up the whole “I paid for it, I’m eating it,” argument, neither really has it within themselves to counter his point. Of course, there was that one time Michelle suggested he just _not_ buy the damn meal, but it’s Ned. Ned doesn’t always listen. Ned’s special that way, and they both love him for it.

Instead, Peter turns to Michelle, the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he leans down and nods towards her bag, now discarded between her legs on the ground.

“What were you reading?”

“Nothing you’d be familiar with,” she quips back, her own smirk forming as she turns a little to face him more comfortably and leans her head on her forearms, her voice almost challenging, hinting at yet another round of the familiar game of tug-and-war he plays with no one but her, a game they both enjoy beyond words but would never quite admit to each other out loud.

“Oh. come on,” Ned says from across her. “Peter and I read. We know lots of books.”

“You really don’t.”

“You underestimate us,” Peter defends. 

“Apart from the chemistry and physics textbooks you’re always lugging around, the only books I’ve ever seen in either of your hands are the Star Wars graphic novels.”

“That’s still reading,” Ned immediately retorts, pushing his now empty tray to the side and reaching over to grab Peter’s water bottle. “If it’s got words, it counts as reading.”

MJ opts for staring at them instead of dignifying them with an answer, making that painful deadpan face she always makes, eyelids about a quarter shut and lips pressed into a thin line. She just… looks at them, never batting an eye, and it’s abundantly clear soon enough to both the boys that they’ve lost the argument.

“Fine,” Peter sighs, but then adds, smiling: “Keep your secrets. We don’t care anyway. Do we?”

“Not in the least.”

“That’s right.”

The corner of her lips turn up just slightly at his statement, and she lifts a leg over the bench so that she’s now straddling it, facing Peter. She leans forward, almost as if she’s about to tell him a secret, and, glancing once to both sides of them in order to make sure no one’s listening in, whispers: “I’m not the one keeping secrets, Parker.”

He’s sure there’s something comical about the way he feels his eyes reflexively widen, then, and he immediately whips his head in Ned’s direction, seeing his friend in a very similar state. It seems that maybe Ned’s even paled at the remark, fingertips now wildly drumming against the top of his thighs. Peter throws around one more furtive glance, just to make sure no one’s heard them (no one has), and makes a hasty attempt at regaining his composure.

“I, uh, don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie to me,” she simply says, with a bit of a smirk, and if Peter’s heartbeat hadn’t come skidding to a halt yet, it definitely has now. _How could she know?_ He’d always been so careful, to the point where he and Ned had made a secret pact never to even _mention_ the Avengers in Michelle’s presence. Knowing her, the slightest alteration of his pitch would give it away.

She leans back then, seemingly proud of having nearly given her friend a heart attack, and nonchalantly, she pulls her school bag over her shoulder and stands up.

“I’ll just let you two digest that for a moment.”

“Please never ask about her books again,” is all Ned can manage to say to the boy once she’s out of sight.

An hour later, as Mr. Reynold’s says something that can’t possibly be more important than the turbulent mess that has taken up residence in Peter’s brain, her words still ring clear, as if she’s still saying them, over and over, knowing the effect they have on him.

_I’m not the one keeping secrets, Parker._

Michelle isn’t in this class of his, and neither is Ned, and perhaps, Peter reasons, that’s for the best. It’s giving him an opportunity to stew in the knowledge that his big bad secret’s been uncovered, and subsequently, in a very organized and calm manner -- two things neither of his best friends are -- figure out how to fix it. Clearly, if he’s thus far been obvious enough for MJ to figure him out, there’s some kind of major flaw in the Spiderman stealth department. Today, it’s MJ. Tomorrow, it could be Flash. He just can’t risk it, not now. Not after Mr. Stark has finally started answering his texts, and sending his own. He needs to talk to MJ, figure out exactly what he’s been doing wrong, and fix it.

“Is that garbage can more interesting than my class, Peter?” Mr. Reynolds’ voice says from somewhere close, and the low, nasal sound snaps the boy right out of his reverie. He’s standing right over Peter’s desk, a stern frown in place and his pale, bony hands resting at his hips.

“Uh - Um, no. Sorry,” the teen sputters, hurriedly glancing around the room to see a novel in each of his classmate’s hands, and then a matching one at the corner of his desk, laid right in front of his teacher. He picks the book up and begins flipping through the pages, with not much idea of where to go from there. “I’ll… uh, I’ll read, now?”

“That you will. Page 57, third paragraph. Out loud, please.”

He won’t lie and say he enjoys the novel (English has never been his thing; he’s more of a chemistry person), but he thinks it might be the distraction he needs from losing his mind over MJ’s words for the remaining 40 minutes of the class. He can’t remember much of the book as the bell rings and the tall, lanky teacher distractedly instructs everyone to put their chairs up, save for an excruciatingly vivid description of a baseball glove right at the beginning.

Ned’s waiting right outside his class when he steps out, both of their school bags thrown over each of his shoulders as he roughly grips Peter’s arms and nearly yanks him into the water fountain to the right of Mr. Reynolds’ classroom entrance. It’s a relatively secluded part of the school, due to the student body’s lack of enthusiasm towards the English teacher, the lack of lockers in the area, and the fountain’s sad reputation for its unfortunately lukewarm water.

Peter narrows his eyes at him in equal parts bafflement and frustration, but Ned pays him no attention as he drags him out the closest exit, running on his tiptoes almost as if they were sneaking away from something. He only lets go of his friend’s arm once they’ve stilled at the far back of the school’s soccer field, towards the back where a long, straight line of elm trees run parallel to the worn metal fence.

“Is there a reason we had to _run_ all the way here?”

“Yeah. We had to avoid MJ.”

“Dude,” Peter sighs as he sits down in front of Ned, who’s already put their bags down and is trying to get comfortable on the half-dry grass, “why are we avoiding her if she already knows?”

“Because we need to discuss how much she can find out today,” Ned simply replies, and although Peter wants to argue, he really does, his best friend has a point. 

“Okay. So we tell her about Washington, Germany, Liz’s dad -”

_“ - No!”_ Ned exclaims to that, “Not about Liz’s dad. That’s not fair.”

“It was on TV though.”

“Right.”

“Other than that, we tell her everything?”

“... Pretty much?” the boy shrugs, then, sobering up, he straightens and leans forward just slightly, putting that top-secret-discussion face of his on that oddly reminds Peter of Mr. Stark when he’s trying to argue a point. “We also need to make sure she doesn’t tell anyone, Peter. We can’t handle more than just our closest friends knowing.”

“She won’t. She’s MJ. She doesn’t tell people secrets.”

“Trust me, I know that.”

“Then we shouldn’t be hiding under a tree,” the boy reasons. “We should go find her, ask her how she found out, and then fix what we’re doing wrong.”

“There’s a whole lot to fix,” a sudden but familiar voice says somewhere to their right, startling them as Michelle makes her way to the duo, setting her own bag down as she sits down with her legs crossed, right next to Ned. “You’re not very subtle.”

“How long have you been here?” Ned asks her, and she simply smirks in response, prompting the boy to drop it. He hasn’t been able to get a straight answer for pretty much anything out of her, ever, and something tells him that that isn’t about to change right this moment.

“Alright, alright. Tell us when you found out,” he curtly says then. “Tell us everything we did wrong.”

“Everything?” MJ tries to tease, but all amusement drops from her face when she is met by two _incredibly_ sincere gazes as her friends nod in unison. “Okay, well, there was your whole chemistry supply theft rampage,” she says, gesturing toward Peter, “Right before Spiderman was first spotted, no less.”

“I did no such thing--”

“And then there was that whole deal about you getting that Stark internship the same weekend Spiderman was caught destroying an airport in Germany with him.”

“Yeah, you probably should have thought that one out,” Ned remarks, and he gets a smack on the arm for it.

“There was that thing in Washington,” she adds, and then, smiling a little, “and the fact that you think under your bed is a good place to hide a Tony Stark-built suit.”

It’s almost a reflex when Peter feels his eyes widen at the statement, and though he attempts at opening his mouth a couple of times to say something, no words seem to leave him.

“Why were you looking under his bed, anyway?” Ned supplies instead, and Peter is eternally grateful for him.

“I was looking for pieces from that Death Star you dropped in his room. You guys asked me to.”

_“That was three months ago.”_

“It was,” she replies matter-of-factly.

_“You’ve known this whole time?”_ Peter blurts out, in shock as well as in fascination, and dare he say, a little bit of _relief._ There’s a weird feeling that makes its way up his chest, something bubbling of fear and anxiety and joy all at once as he and Ned share a final glance, both thinking the same thing -- that it could’ve been worse. Between the two of them, it had begun to become a little tiresome, keeping their secret from their other best friend (not that they’d done very well, they know that now), and it feels like breathing in a breath of fresh air after having spent a whole day in his spidermask now that she _knows._ Of course, he might not be able to keep her away from danger the way he’d have hoped to if she had never found out, but between that and Michelle knowing him, _all of him_ , in the way that he always hoped she would, he thinks he got the better deal of the bargain. Or, at least, with the little smile she sends his way, teasing and sympathetic at once, somehow, it sure feels like he did.

“Well,” he finally breathes out, slowly, “I guess there are no more secrets now,” and then, as an afterthought: “I’m gonna need a new place to hide the suit.”

“Okay then, if we’re done running away from me,” Michelle says as she stands up, grabbing her bag with one hand and extending the other to Ned. “We can maybe discuss optimal supersuit hiding spots elsewhere. I think the team has practice out here in a bit.”

“If you’re suggesting that we go to Pete’s house, I’m always on board,” Ned jokes as he hoists himself up, right before turning to Peter and nodding at him to stand up as well, “May makes the absolute best salami sandwiches.”

And of course, because Peter has never, in his entire life, been able to deny Ned of May’s “cooking” to this day, it isn’t even a whole half an hour until the trio find themselves in Peter’s bedroom, each a sandwich in hand. Ned’s seated at the foot of his best friend’s twin bed, legs crossed and back leaning against a pillow at the footboard, looking down at Peter, sprawled sideways along the length of the bed. At the head of the bed, Michelle examines Peter’s spidersuit, caressing the thin material between the fingers of her free hand with an awe Peter’s never seen in her before, her knees pulled close to her chest. Their bags are haphazardly thrown across the floor, forgotten, and although the three of them know that May is in on their current situation, the door is shut and locked in an unnecessary attempt to keep her at bay from the discussion.

“What material is this?” MJ whispers at some point, scrutinizing the small emblem at the suit’s front, gently running her fingers over it. 

“Uh, oh, I’m not a 100% sure,” Peter immediately replies, taking the last bite of his sandwich and sitting up. “Mr. Stark made it. I think he modified the material himself. It’s very similar to some kind of nylon spandex blend.”

“Except way lighter” Ned adds, “and _definitely_ more resistant to burns and tears.”

“That’s pretty cool.”

“Oh yeah. I almost lost my mind when Happy first showed it to me.”

“Who’s that?”

“He’s Tony Stark’s guy in the chair,” Ned pipes up, “Just like I’m Peter’s.”

“That’s cute,” Michelle smiles, “You found a nicer way to say sidekick.”

“He’s not my -” Peter starts, because Ned is _so much more_ than just a sidekick. He’s his best friend, his strength, his inspiration, his - his _brother,_ he wants to correct, but he’s cut off by said brother himself before he can say anything.

“That’s right! I’m the best there is.”

MJ full-on laughs at that, Ned joining in soon after, and when their amusement has died off a bit, and they both find themselves staring at Peter, Ned cocking his head a bit, curious as to why his best friend hasn’t joined in on the fun, Peter simply sighs and smiles at their antics.

“He really is.”

Ned stares at him for a second, as if contemplating something, and then: “Good. If you’d said Karen was better, I’d have hurt you very bad.”

That seems to confuse MJ, because she gently puts the suit down on Peter’s nightstand and sits up straighter for a split second, before changing her mind and moving to lean forward on her elbows as she throws Ned a confused look. 

“Karen?”

“A.I.” Peter replies, “Accessible through the suit. She’s pretty cool.”

“Not that cool. She’s no match for my Chair Guy skills.”

MJ looks like she wants to want to reply, but whatever she may have wanted to say stays within her when a loud knock at the door resounds in the small room.

“Peter!” May calls from the other side. “Honey, I’m gonna need you to keep this door unlocked, okay? You promised not to go save the world without telling me first!”

“I’m still here, May,” Peter calls, but he moves to go unlock the door nonetheless. Rolling his eyes when his aunt scrutinizes his face for cuts of scrapes (not as subtly as she thinks) as soon as she lays eyes on him. “You need to trust me a little.”

“I do,” she says honestly, before leaning to the side to get a better view of MJ and Ned, seemingly satisfied with their current situation: bags on opposite sides of the floor and the both of them seated side by side, with a pillow in Ned’s arms. “But an aunt’s gotta worry. Now keep this door open.”

And, like the truly trusting aunt she is, May throws him a moderately predatory glance as she walks back to her own room, turning around once to make sure Peter hasn’t shut the door on her.

“We’ve got to start hanging out somewhere else,” Peter sighs once she’s out of earshot, walking back to his friends. “I love May, but she’s just about to drive me up a wall.”

“Literally.”

“Not helping, man.”

Ned simply smiles in response, unbothered, and slides over from his spot to allow Peter the room he needs to dramatically plop down onto the mattress, prompting an amused look from MJ. He shrugs at her, and she shakes her head before glancing over to Ned as if she’s just had some huge revelation and then turning back to face Peter, curious.

“Do you have access to Avengers Tower?”

The question is entirely out of the blue, taking the boy by surprise, and he’s quick to open his mouth in order to give a reply before it hits him that _he has no idea._ He knows for a fact that every Avenger in the Stark database is allowed access to the building, and it might be entirely plausible that Peter’s own information may be registered as well, but something within him reminds him, much unfortunately, that despite having earned Mr. Stark’s praise, Peter isn’t an Avenger, and probably won’t be for a while, therefore having no more claim over the facility than any other random civilian.

“Hey. Earth to Parker. D’you have access to the tower?”

“I - I don’t think so,” Peter answers with a hint of shame for not knowing. It’s not his fault, obviously; he’s never gone into the place without Mr. Hogan or Mr. Stark disabling the security measures for him first, but the knowledge does nothing to thwart the stupid little voice inside him that tells him he should know _for sure._ On one hand, it makes complete sense for him not to have access: he’s viewed by the man as a kid who’s barely just met the team and only recently proven to him that he isn’t a _complete_ reckless idiot, but on the other, a deep something within his chest, light and warm like _hope_ reminds him of the stark possibility of the opposite. After all, Mr. Stark had trusted Peter enough to give him his suit back _and_ watched him pass with flying colours at the test he’d set to evaluate his values. Maybe he trusts the boy enough to let him into the communal superhero space? Hesitantly, he adds: “Maybe.”

“Shame we can’t find out,” Ned says in a tone that conveys anything but sincerity, the hint of a smile tugging at his lips as he shares another look with MJ, the two of them clearly understanding something that’s completely flying over Peter’s head. “It would be pretty awesome to have our own hangout spot in the place. No distractions, no May, amazing WiFi…”

“No way,” Peter says as soon as he begins to understand their little idea, “Absolutely not, guys. We can’t do that.”

“Of course we can,” Michelle says in front of him, “It’s only a bus ride and two subway changes from school. A little over an hour at most.”

“No!” he exclaims, “Guys, if Mr. Stark sees me trying to sneak into his place, he’ll never take me seriously again. We can’t.”

“He programmed your suit to activate a ‘Training Wheels Protocol’. He doesn’t take you seriously anyway,” Ned adds as if it’s the world’s most helpful thing to say at the moment.

“You know what I mean, dude.”

“Okay, listen,” Ned starts, leaning toward Peter and dropping his voice to a whisper, glancing toward the room’s exit to make sure once more that May isn’t eavesdropping, “I don’t believe that Tony Stark offering you to join him and become an Avenger was a test. I think he really wanted you to join.There’s a reason he wants to hear from you every day now. And that’s not even mentioning all the new tech he sends you, or how he’s your emergency contact at school.”

“He’s my _what?”_

“Has been for like a month,” Ned dismisses, before the fierce determination overcomes his face again. “Peter, there’s a fifty percent chance that your information can get us onto at least the communal lounge in that building.”

“And if it can,” Michelle adds, “it’s because we’re allowed to be there -- or at least you are.”

“It’s the perfect place for us to be, Peter. We can talk Spiderman stuff for hours and there’s no risk of anyone overhearing. Least of all May. It’ll help keep her away from the danger.”

_That_ strikes a nerve. It’s true that while he’s in the house, May would never let him go out and do what he does unless she’s fully aware and involved with it, and there’s no possible way that Peter -- or his friends, for that matter -- would let her entangle herself in the mess that is high-end criminals in the tri-state area. Not after what he and Ned had gone through with the Vulture.

“I just don’t want Mr. Stark to think I’m getting ahead of myself by sneaking into his space,” he finally breathes out.

“He won’t, but I can try to freeze the camera feed once we’re there if it helps.”

“But FRIDAY -”

“If it’s just one floor, we can try to disable the A. I.”

“There’s no possible way you can do that,” MJ says to Ned. “Freezing the video feed might work, but the A. I. is going to be impossible to avoid.”

“She… _might_ be programmed to listen to the Avengers,” Peter whispers, a little unsure, still, of why he’s listening to his two idiotic friends who seem hell-bent on rescinding his chances of becoming an Avenger for good. “We could try just asking her not to tell.”

The three of them look at each other then, silent while they contemplate Peter’s last words with a certain sort of apprehension. Peter knows for a fact that going through with this crazy idea of theirs can’t possibly be a smart thing to do, but fueled by something he can’t recognize, some uncharacteristic mixture of curiosity, and just the slightest hint of _hope_ , topped off with the thought of keeping the only family he has safe amidst the giant mess that his life has become, he says: “We’ll take the bus after last, tomorrow. Bring your laptop, Ned.”

Safe to say, neither of the three gets a decent night of sleep afterward, and Peter’s hands shake a little more than normal when he texts his day’s activities to Tony, every key pressed a reminder of the borderline rebellious move he’s about to pull. The school day that follows isn’t any better. Peter can’t seem to focus on any of his classes, even more so than usually, and a large majority of his effort and energy are being put into contemplating the various potential outcomes of the the stunt he’s convinced himself to pull today. He realizes how risky it is; how his entire future as an Avenger and Mr. Stark’s mentee is being laid on the line, but the more time he spends thinking about it, the more the positive implications of Ned and MJ’s idea seem to outweigh the negative ones.

_He could keep May safe._ Going to Avengers Tower to do all his Spiderman business under the pretext of being over at Ned’s keeps everyone away from Peter -- and from his family. Not to mention that he gets his own space, with the added benefit of getting a chance to familiarize himself with the impressive monument while he’s there. Plus, if FRIDAY somehow allows him to keep operating under Mr. Stark’s nose without him realizing it, a situation that is far unlikely but no longer seems impossible to the boy, he might just have a new place to make and store his web fluid, a place to make upgrades to his suit, a place for Ned to keep working on his computer skills, a place where he can spend more time with MJ, and maybe, after all of this, it’ll be easier to convince Mr. Stark that he’s ready to be an Avenger. After all, not anyone could have managed to be cunning enough to sneak into his own tower without him realizing it for the past few months.

It just… makes sense to him. Well, it _almost_ makes sense to him. There’s still one thing he can’t wrap his head around.

“Why are you agreeing to this?” he asks MJ when they’re in art class, voice muffled under the heavy rock his teacher’s playing on the smartboard, watching her sketch something he can’t entirely see from his weird angle next to her, his own sketchbook laying bare in front of him.

“Agreeing to what?” she asks, lifting her head and turning to him briefly, before nodding towards his forgotten pencil, “Draw.”

Peter rolls his eyes, but picks the pencil up anyway, drawing a straight line on the blank page that he doesn’t really know yet what he’ll turn into, his hands just sort of working on autopilot. “Agreeing with Ned. About the thing after school.”

She drops her pencil and turns a little to grab an eraser from her case, and he realizes in wonder that she’d drawn a rough portrait of he and Ned, mid-handshake. “Because,” she says nonchalantly, eyes never leaving her paper, “if you’re gonna go do your thing, I feel the need to make sure you get to do your thing in a way that Ned knows you’re safe doing it. He’s worried.”

“He is?”

“Yeah, dimwit, and he thinks it’s better for you to be working from the Tower because of it. I don’t entirely disagree.”

“I just never thought you’d care,” he says honestly.

“I don’t,” she casually says, but this time, perhaps for the first time ever, Peter is able to catch the lie in her usual blunt and stoic tone. He tries to hide his smile as he keeps sketching.

Lucky for the teenagers, the end of last period doesn’t come too long after, and before they have the chance to sit down and go over how _idiotic_ this idea of their really is, the trio finds itself walking up the steps of the subway station, ready to make the relatively short walk to their destination. Avengers Tower, here they come.


	2. Chapter 2

They get off in a hurry, ready to speed walk to the tower, carried by the adrenaline pumping through them, but are thrown to the side when a tall man in a navy suit pushes past them, hurriedly pacing as he harshly whispers something into a phone.

Peter almost brings himself to brush it off as nonchalant, ignoring the guy as he sees Ned and MJ already a couple of steps him, before he feels it. It’s like every hair on his body stands on edge at once, his vision flashing a pure white and his heart rate slowing down drastically, like he’s stuck in time but moving entirely too fast all at once. The only thing he can hear is a long, high-pitched ringing that seems like it’s coming from within his head. It doesn’t hurt, doesn’t even feel too uncomfortable, but Peter feels _empty._ For a second, he thinks it almost feels like he’s left his own body and is stuck in someone else’s, helplessly watching his life unfold. He’s felt it before, usually in the heat of a battle while some thug has a knife drawn on him, but never so clear. Never so _pronounced._

Despite how it feels, the moment only lasts a split-second, passing as soon as it had arrived, but its brief surprise visit is enough to let him know that something, somewhere, is very, very wrong. Wordlessly, with a last glance at his friends, cluelessly walking in the opposite direction, Peter begins following the businessman, sending Ned a mental apology. The guy walks quickly, rushing as if he needs to catch a one-time bus to God-knows-where, and whispers things into the cell in his hand that Peter can’t quite hear. And call it a gut feeling, but Peter gets the idea that whatever it is he’s saying into that phone, it needs to be stopped. Making sure to keep out of the stranger’s line of sight, Peter keeps trailing him from what he deems a safe distance, already on the lookout for a relatively secluded space to change.

Never slowing down, the guy turns into an alley, finally putting the phone down before abruptly stopping on the other end of the narrow pass as if waiting for something.

Seizing the opportunity, Peter throws a hasty glance around to make sure no one can see him, and makes quick move of hiding behind a staircase, unbuttoning his plaid shirt and pulling down his jeans, revealing the suit he’s learned to wear under his casual attire for convenience purposes. He unzips his backpack’s front pocket and pulls his mask out, rolling it over his face before offhandedly tossing the bag behind an abandoned pile of bricks, out of sight. He crawls up the side of one of the rugged buildings lining the narrow alley in an attempt to stay out of Creepy’s field of vision. Slowly making his way to the top, where he hoists himself onto the low roof for a better vantage point. 

Nothing happens at first, and Peter contemplates if his senses have wronged him, just this once, but the thought is quickly dismissed when a large navy blue van speeds in, far faster than it is legal, and Creepy nearly jumps into it as he watches the vehicle drive away. Spiderman wastes no time in following them, running above the rooftops in a desperate attempt to assess the situation, and, realizing how bad the angle is, jumps down onto the middle of the street, right behind the car, to get a look through the tinted windshield. 

_Somebody’s being kidnapped._

It’s not obvious, but as he runs behind the car whose driver’s clearly seen him, based on how the vehicle makes a sudden sharp turn and increases in speed, Peter can vaguely make out the shape of what’s being tried to pass off as trash bag moving as a couple of men -- not sure how many -- try to hold it down. 

“Karen, activate enhanced reconnaissance mode.”

“Protocol activated,” Karen replies, and Peter’s able to zoom onto the speeding vehicle, inhibiting three men in suits, one in the front seat, one in the passenger’s seat, and another in the back with a man that he’s trying to hold down. The car then makes a right turn, then another, and then another again, before driving straight onto a busy intersection at full speed. 

“Would you like to activate the _Tony Hawk_ protocol?” Karen’s voice comes as Peter’s swinging off a traffic light signal in hopes of catching up to the car. 

“Not sure what that is, but _sure,_ ” Peter answers as he hits the ground, and almost immediately, materializing out of nowhere, he swears he feels his suit sprout wheels under his foot, and before he’s even fully aware he’s doing it, Peter finds himself practically skating on thin air towards the car at full speed, propelled by some kind of boosters placed under his soles. 

He catches up with the van shortly after, jumping onto its roof and then punching one of the windows out and climbing into the already jam-packed vehicle and grabbing the steering wheel. Seated on the strange guy’s lap, Peter hits the breaks, and as he sees the car slow down, grabs the driver and tackles him down on the cement outside in one swift move. He’s vaguely aware of a couple of guns drawn on him at this point, and quickly sweeps the area with his gaze.

“Well, it was fun dropping by. See you next time!” Peter says, running over to grab the trash bag-covered person to swing onto the closest rooftop and out of the mens’ view. Once up, he lets go of the person and moves back as he lets them lift the bag off their head, panting. 

The trash bag then falls to reveal a tall, muscular man sporting a thick, bushy mustache and a messy crew cut. He looks stern, like he should be working on an army base, and his hands are about the size of Peter’s face. The man scrutinizes the hero, then, and Peter self-consciously tries to stand straight, arms crossed in front of his chest in a pose that _hopefully_ gives off an air of confidence.

“You’re Spiderman,” he says, narrowing his eyes. “I’ve been trying catch you.”

“Yeah,” Peter replies, “I’m a little tough to get your hands on. Comes with being a vigilante and all.”

“I’d like to sit you down for an interview, vigilante.”

“Oh. uh, some other time, dude,” Peter barely makes out before moving to swing away, hoping Ned and MJ haven’t gone too crazy looking for him.

“I’m J. J. Jameson at the Daily Bugle. I’ll be waiting for that interview.”

Peter has half a mind to throw the man a hurried nod and quickly makes his way back, surveying the streets from his spot, perched upon a relatively tall apartment complex, in search of his friends. There’s no sign of them at first, so he steadily makes his way back to the secluded alley where he’d left his bag, relieved to see it still hiding behind the bricks. He glances around to make sure the alley is empty, and carefully tugs his clothes back on, pulling out his phone to see if Ned’s left him a message. 

Sure enough, there are a couple of texts from his best friend. Each is progressively more aggressive than the last, laced with unnecessary emojis and swear words Peter didn’t even know existed, but handing him the one piece of information he really needs nonetheless.

Taking a deep breath, Peter begins walking towards the impressive Tower.

The walk is quick, fueled by a multitude of emotions he can’t quite identify, and soon enough, Peter finds himself staring at the tall glass doors that lead onto the sixth floor of the tower: the first one that isn’t a communal passageway and to actually be closed to the public. In front of him, a few steps away from the door -- possibly to avoid potential security cameras, Ned and MJ are seated against the wall, with her head on his shoulder and a book in her hands as he furiously types something onto his laptop. Michelle sees him first, eyes widening and book falling to the floor as she nearly jogs up to him and skids to a halt, like she was going to bump into him and just realized. Hesitantly, she brings a hand up to Peter’s shoulder and, more firmly, examines him under a scrutinizing glare.

“Where in the world did you go off to?”

“A hero is never off duty.”

“If this hero ever runs off without telling his friends what he’s doing again,” she says, not a hint of humour in her tone, “I will kill him myself.”

“And I’ll help her hide the body,” Ned says from Peter’s side, and the boy jumps, having not noticed his best friend walking up to him. “We’re a team, Peter. You have to tell us these things.”

“I would have,” Peter insists, “I would have told you, man, both of you. But I didn’t know myself that I was going to have to chase that guy.”

“What do you mean?” MJ asks, “You just… disappeared. You must’ve known something.”

“I didn’t,” he admits. “I just - I _felt_ it. It’s like my body was telling me something bad was going down, so I followed him, and he and a bunch of other dudes in suits were kidnapping a journalist. It… I feel it sometimes when something bad’s going on.”

“Woah,” Ned breathes, “D’you think that could be part of your powers? Letting you know when something’s wrong. Like Batman’s light, but in your body!”

“I mean, it rarely happens. When it does, it’s usually too late anyway, but for some reason it was _way_ earlier today -”

“Spidey senses,” Ned firmly says. Then, at a lack of response from the others: “What? We’ll call them spidey senses. No?”

“We just don’t know for sure that that’s what they are, bro.”

“They are,” the boy replies, making his way back to sit against the wall, where his laptop is, “and when it’ll be proven, we’ll call them spidey senses. Anyway, I started on accessing the security feed, but it might take a while, Pete.”

It does, but that doesn’t bother the boy too much, not while he’s got his math book open in front of him as he scribbles near illegible formulas into it, one pencil in his hand while he absentmindedly chews on a second one, held between his upper and lower rows of teeth. Michelle is right there with him, head laying on his shoulder and legs on top on Ned’s while she finishes her book. His best friend, for his part, does what he does best and works at the internal coding of the security protocols set in place for the monument, fingers typing something that might’ve been utter gibberish to anyone but him, until a window pops up on his screen and he turns it towards the other two. 

“MJ was right. I froze the camera feed for the sixth and seventh floors, but the A. I. is impossible to manipulate.”

Instead of answering, Peter simply looks up, shuts his book, and places all of his stuff back into his school bag, watching his company do the same. Wordlessly, the three of them walk, one heavy step at a time, closer to the thick transparent fixtures. They have a view of something that seems to be a wide hallway, white and bare before making a sharp turn into what they can only assume is the first room on the floor. Peter takes another step forward, breath hitching in his throat.To his right, affixed within the wall, is a blank, black screen just big enough to fit an adult sized hand, and under it, a keypad to which the code Peter doesn’t know. 

He stares at the little black square, surrounded by silver all over with just a tiny little circle of red light glowing above the top right corner. Nothing on the screen indicates that it’s on, or even functional, for that matter, and Peter’s tempted to place his palm on it just to verify if it even is what he thinks it is. Behind him, his two best friends stand, quiet enough that he’s convinced they’re holding their breaths to allow him the time to make up his mind about this, like they know _exactly_ how scared he is of the result of the action he’s about to take. 

“You don’t have to do it, you know,” Ned finally whispers behind him, barely loud enough for him to hear, “We thought it’d be cool to come here but if you don’t want to, Peter, we can just go back and -”

Anything he might have said after that is cut short by the long beep that emerges from the little square. Under Peter’s palm, the screen flashes a light blue, and a familiar voice that comes from everywhere and nowhere at once says, evenly: “First time scanning prints. Voice confirmation required.”

Behind him, Peter feels rather than sees MJ take a small, almost insignificant step forward, and he breathes in, closing his eyes as he tries to ignore the blaring sounds of his own heartbeat overtaking him. Slowly, he speaks into the square, voice wavering. 

_“Spi- Spiderman.”_

The next split second is the longest Peter ever has to get through, but it only really lasts that - a split second - before the screen flashes blue again, for longer this time, and the little red dot above the screen turns green.

“Welcome, _Peter,_ ” FRIDAY’s omniscient voice booms again, and soundlessly, the doors in front of Peter slide open, allowing the young boy and his friends slip into the corridor, which happens to be much shorter than it looks like from outside. “Is there anything you’d like my help with?”

_Holy shit. Holy shit holy shit holy SHIT._

“Uh, yeah,” the boy says, snapping out of himself, “I’d actually like for you not to tell Mr. Stark about us being here? Please?”

“I am not required to report anything to Mr. Stark unless he specifically asks, or if there is a security threat,” the system answers, the relief that floods into Peter’s system accentuated by the comforting feeling of Ned’s hand around his shoulder as the three friends march into the first room after the short corridor. It’s a weird feeling for Peter, being here. He’s never quite been in the tower without Mr. Stark before, and he’s _definitely_ never seen the room laid out in front of him.

It’s a large open space, almost like an entire apartment that someone forgot to separate into rooms, with grey marble flooring and an expansive white carpet covering about half of it. On the left side of the room, in some kind of expanded U-shape against one of the walls, there are four huge sofas, the two at the extremities curving into some kind of softer version of an ‘L’ so that whomever is seated on them may be able to face the others. In front of the couches, a relatively low but still large white coffee table stands unbothered, a cute little bonsai tree in a circular, charcoal coloured pot placed on top. Next to them, just a little further down, is erected a tall bookshelf, filled with enough books for it to be considered a small library of its own, and a desk big enough for three people stands on the other side of it, two laptops resting on the table, shut down. The back wall is painted a grey only slightly darker than the floor and almost bare, save for the giant painted ‘A’ on it and the big silver doors near its right corner that Peter can only assume is an elevator, the same black screen and keypad as outside placed into this wall, as well. 

The right half of the room gives off less of a living room vibe and something much more akin to a gigantic dining room, with a long island running down about a quarter of the piece’s length with tall, white stools on each side. Parallel to the island, built against the right wall, there is a counter with cabinets both above and under it, stretching from one wall to the other, only separating somewhere halfway, where an abnormally large refrigerator stands next to a stove, sink, and microwave oven, every appliance seeming to the kid as though it’s almost too modern, too _new_ to even exist. 

Behind him, Peter hears someone - he assumes it’s MJ - let out a faint gasp and turns around, the view behind him knocking free every square inch of air he’d had trapped within his lungs. While about a quarter of the wall behind them, the part of it that they just walked in from, is normal, erected and painted the same way as the other three of the room, the rest of it is transparent, one enormous glass pane spanning across the place’s width, allowing the teens a view of the city that is somehow both humbling and exhilarating at once. Below them, the city all three of them have grown up in for _sixteen_ years stretches out, and somehow bathes it all in an entirely new light for them, as if they don’t really know the place at all. Ned takes a few steps forward, reaching his hand out to gently place his palm against the glass, and Peter quickly follows, eyes roaming all over, never certain what part of the view to land on. He can see _everything_ , from the skyscrapers to the cars rushing down the streets to the very bus stop the three of them just walked up from, and standing here, face only a few inches away from the giant window six stories above ground that gives him a view of everything he knows, loves, and is sworn to protect, Peter finds himself feeling the same rush, the same pumping of adrenaline as he feels when swinging off a rooftop between afternoon jobs. 

“This was _such_ a great idea,” Ned breathes against the glass, his breath fogging it up a bit, and next to him, all Peter can bring himself to do is nod in agreement.

It takes a few seconds -- or maybe a few hours, Peter can’t really tell -- for the two of them to finally snap out of it, turning back to see Michelle a few steps behind them, definitely not as taken aback but starstruck in her own way. She’s sitting on one of the stools lining up against the island, bag sitting on its silver surface, fingers absentmindedly running the length of the counter before she notices the two boys staring and immediately retreats, scrambling to zip open her bag and pull something out of it.

“This place is perfect to peacefully get some work done,” she says, avoiding the boys’ eyes and pulling a notebook out of the sac. “I’m gonna go sit on one of the couches over there.”

Now, Peter’s never been a big fan of homework, but if getting it done as soon as possible lets him explore _this place_ to his heart’s content later on, he’d zip through the entire workbook in a heartbeat. He slides his bag off his shoulder and runs off to join her.

Behind him, Ned silently questions when his best friend began loving school work so much.

The algebra is excruciating, as are the political history and finance pages, but he trudges through them like only a real hero would, only looking up twice during the entire process to see his friends doing the same. By the time they’re done, the sun is hanging low against the skyline, the friendly blue sky morphing into a deep purple and then suddenly turning a bright orange. It’s definitely not the first sunset Peter’s seen, and not even the first he’s seen from this height, but being able to witness, firsthand, the soft orange glow of nightfall hitting the grey walls inside the tower, it makes him feel more like an Avenger than swinging off a skyscraper ever has. 

He absolutely _loves_ being here.

They spend maybe another hour at the tower, leaving the enormous room at some point in favour of going down and taking a closer look at the garden they see from their window upstairs. It’s somehow larger than Peter remembers it, filled with bright flowers and other plants even Ned’s never heard of.There are several benches stationed in and around the greenery, and the trio realize with glee that Mr. Stark keeps the garden as public as a municipal park when they come across a little boy, dressed in an iron-suit onesie, in an animated fight against a tree sporting the face of some weird, grey creature they’re sure the kid had meant to be an alien of some kind. 

They walk around and marvel at the sight of everything the towers’ yard has to offer, only running back in to collect their stuff and make their way back home. It’s unspoken, mutually understood by the three of them that they’ll come back. Whether or not this is the best thing to do, neither of them is still quite sure. But all Peter knows is that being here, in Avengers Tower like it’s where he’s always belonged, it feels _right._

“Peter,” FRIDAY calls after the young man as he prepares himself to exit the building, “You don’t need to ask your friend to override the cameras.”

He freezes at that, and in front of him, it’s obvious that Ned does, too. He turns back toward Peter, eyes wide and jaw practically on the floor. Next to him, MJ looks at the ceiling with a look of utter confusion. 

“But - but Mr. Stark...” Peter tries, panic evident in the way his voice quivers ever-so-slightly.

“I can arrange for the cameras to be temporarily disabled when you enter the system. Would you like that?”

“I - uh, uh, yeah. Thank you.”

And with that, he nods at his friends and runs up to them, attempting a polite smile at the empty room after belatedly remembering that FRIDAY has no corporeal form. “Um, bye.”

“Goodbye, Peter.”

* * *

Up on the 23rd floor, a cup of coffee in one hand and a wrench in the other, Tony Stark curses at his desk-turned-toolstation, trying his best not to drop the hot drink as he hastily sets it down on the nearest surface and bends down to assess the damage that’s been inflicted upon his ankle.

“Ah, shit. _Shit._ Did the kids go home? _Shit.”_

“Peter Parker, Ned Leeds, and Michelle Jones have all left headquarters.”

“You tell Leeds to stay out of my cameras?”

“I’ve informed them that the cameras will be disabled every time they enter the building if they so wish.”

“Is that so?” 

“You told me to make sure he was comfortable.”

“Yeah, yeah. And who’s the girl? That’s Michelle, right? Pete finally got the girl?”

“Based on their body language, there are chances of sexual attraction.”

“What kind of chances?”

“I am not capable of calculating that.”

“Boring.”

FRIDAY says nothing, and Tony merely chuckles at some thought that’s coherent only to him and resumes his work, the ghost of his smile present even long after the teenagers have gone off home.

* * *

Peter wistfully watches Ned and MJ leave him at the intersection near his house, walking home under the now pitch-black sky, mind still whirring with thoughts of Jameson and the men in suits crawling back to the forefront of his mind. He slowly walks up to his apartment complex, his body and mind threatening to give out as he makes his way up the stairs, and carefully opens his door, glancing into the living room to make sure May isn’t waiting up on him. Quietly, he begins to make his way to his room when the kitchen lights, left on at the other end of the house, catch his attention. He makes his way toward them, slowly putting his schoolbag down at the foot of the sole couch in the living area, to find a ceramic pot at the edge of a dining table, a post-it note laying by its side. 

_Eat some, pack some for lunch. Love you. -Aunt May_

He’s not exactly hungry, but there’s no way in hell he isn’t eating May’s spaghetti. He knows she left the good meatballs for him. He walks to the cupboard and grabs himself a plate.

* * *

Elsewhere in the city, a large man sits in his regal chair, dusting off the sleeves of the white coat he’s got on, his free hand ghosting over a glass of whiskey, untouched now for a couple of minutes longer that it was supposed to be.

“And you know absolutely nothing of the vigilante?”

“Nobody knows his identity, King.”

“What did he seem like?” Wilson presses, leaning forward slightly, “Where did he come from? _How did he know?”_

“We’re not sure, King.”

“Then find out!” he roars, and the liquid in the glass atop his desk spills off the rim a little. “Find the bastard and show him to never cross my path again!” The entire desk shakes as Wilson ‘Kingpin’ Fisk stands up and walks over to the other side of it in three long strides, grabbing the man in front of him by the nape of his neck and pulling him down so his face is trapped between the cold wooden table and Fisk’s enormous hand. “You know how I feel about bullies,” he practically spits, “Men who exert their power over the less fortunate are enemies of mine, and I want my enemies at my doorstep, on their knees. Is that understood?”

Struggling to breathe, the smaller man closes his eyes and painfully swallows, his entire skull throbbing under Kingpin’s weight. “Yes - yes, King,” he breathes out, and it’s the last thing he remembers saying before the world fades to black.

* * *

Pepper gets home later than usual that night, walking into her dark bedroom, illuminated solely by the dim light of her fiance’s laptop as he holds it close to himself and grins at something -- an image of Peter Parker and his friends in the communal garden, she notices when she goes to take a seat next to him on the bed, pressing a kiss onto his hairline. 

“You had the kid over?” she asks him as he shifts to let her press herself against him, one of his arms looping around her to reach the computer. 

“The kid had _himself_ over.”

“So he figured out that the press conference was for real?” she asks, amused. 

“Don’t think he’s gotten that far yet,” comes the reply, “but he does think he’s slick. Had his hacker pal disable my cameras for a bit before entering.”

She furrows her brows then, cocking her head a bit. “And you didn’t tell him that you knew he was sneaking in?”

“Pretty much.”

“Why?”

It’s a good question, he supposes. He ponders over it for a while, just like he’s been since this afternoon, and no matter how smart Anthony Edward Stark is, no matter how many PhD’s he holds, there is no single coherent way his mind can string together words to explain to the beautiful woman in his arms why he won’t just tell the kid that he _knows._ He can’t seem, despite his bravest efforts, to tell her that he’s enjoying this. The one-sided game of cops and robbers reminds him so much of how his own childhood was, thinking he’d successfully stolen the cookies from the kitchen cupboard only to turn around and see his mother looking at him with that blinding smile of hers, and _god_ he can’t help but feel warm and light inside to know that he now shares that with a kid of his own. It’s like suddenly, they share, accidentally, a bond that goes above and beyond that of two Avengers, or even that of a simple mentor and his mentee. It’s like suddenly, _he’s_ Maria and _Peter’s_ Tony, and he’s so, so close to giving to their relationship the label that it’s worthy of, but decides to hold it back for reasons he’s convinced are valid.

So, instead, he says: “It’s fun to watch little punks think they’re smart. In my top ten favourite hobbies, actually.”

If Pepper can see right through him like he vaguely thinks she can, she doesn’t make a big deal of it.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s almost sunset the next time the kids come over, the following Friday. They’ve left their bags at Ned’s place, nothing but Ned’s laptop in tow as they stop in front of the familiar glass doors, waiting for Peter to press his palm onto the scanner and unlock them. 

The rush of adrenaline is just as mind-numbing as the first time, though the fear is all gone, and Peter really finds himself revelling in all the glory offered to him the moment the tiny red light turns green, and FRIDAY’s voice says, exactly like last time: “Welcome, Peter. All cameras on this floor have been disabled.”

“Thanks,” Peter finds himself replying, and he walks into the small hallway and turns into the gigantic common room, already a comfortable sight to his eyes. He doesn’t wait for Ned or MJ and simply half-jogs to the nearest couch, dramatically dropping onto it and closing his eyes, sighing contently before he feels Ned nudging his legs.

“Peter, you’ve gotta see this.”

“Was that there on Tuesday?” Michelle asks to no one in particular, and Peter has no choice but to lift open one of his eyelids and turn his head to the side, in the direction in which his friends’ gazes are transfixed. His eyes widen at what he sees. Projected in front of them, materializing out of thin air, is a large blue screen, with a variety of viewing options displayed on it. In front of it, lying on the coffee table, is a small rectangular piece of glass, glowing in the same pale blue as the screen. 

“You think it’s here for us?” Michelle asks.

“You think Tony Stark knows we’re here?” Ned inquires then.

“Maybe we should ask,” Peter suggests, and then, quietly: “FRIDAY, why’s there a TV screen in the middle of the room?”

“A new addition in the system as of the latest update. The television screen pops up whenever someone sits on the couch. To get rid of it, simply say so.” 

Ned’s shoulders visibly relax and Michelle nods understandingly at the A. I.’s words. 

“And do we just say so if we need it to reappear, as well?” she asks.

“Yes, Ms. Jones.”

“How do you know who I am?”

“It is my job to have information on daily acquaintances of all Avengers. As companions for Peter Parker, I have three persons listed. Would you like more details?”

“Are they May, Ned, and MJ?” Peter guesses.

“Yes.”

Something inside Peter wants to ask how Mr. Stark got their information, but he quickly dismisses the inquiry, because it’s _Tony Stark,_ after all, and he nods, almost as a dismissal towards FRIDAY, before moving off the couch, making space for Ned, who picks up the glass remote and starts searching for a movie to watch. He lets his gaze wander a bit, and a tray, covered and set on one of the edges of the long island that separates the eating space from the resting area, catches his attention. Next to him, Michelle seems to see it, too, and the duo apprehensively approaches it.

Peter lifts the plastic dome to reveal about a dozen cupcakes, each in cute little blue cups and covered in soft white icing, the soft aroma pouring into his nostrils and almost subconsciously, seamlessly taking over him. He realizes at that moment that it’s been almost four hours since he’s decently eaten, and he’s so, so close to shoving a cupcake down his throat, except --

“FRIDAY, who’re the cupcakes for?”

“Ms. Potts has confectioned pastries for anyone who visits the communal lounge. You are welcome to take some, Peter.”

He nods and makes a move to take one, but MJ’s hand, darting out to grab his own before he can do so, stops him in his tracks. When he turns to look at her, she’s got a mischievous smile on, one that doesn’t differ much from Ned’s, that he’s only recently grown accustomed to.

“D’you think he has mayonnaise laying around?”

“MJ, no.”

Her smile has turned deadly, partly because they’re both aware of the fact that never, in the history of history itself, has Peter ever won an argument against her, and she stalks up to the fridge, pulling it open and scanning its insides. From his poor vantage point, Peter can barely make out its contents, but the way his friend’s eyes practically light up as she leans down to reach something, Peter _knows._

“MJ, no,” he tries again, weakly.

“Oh, come on, Pete,” she says, strutting back with a half full jar of mayo. “It’ll be fun. No one except the computer knows it’s us. It’s harmless.”

He contemplates it, much against his own rational instincts, and somewhere behind him, Ned’s voice rings out: “Guys, let’s watch Die Hard!”

“We get to eat some of them, though,” he finally says, grabbing three of the cupcakes and making his way back to the couches while Michelle rummages through a couple of drawers in an attempt to find utensils. “And don’t make a mess.”

As he takes a bite out of the dangerously delicious dessert, handing placing the other two on the table at his disposal while he pushes Ned to the side to make space for himself in front of the screen, he hears her sweetly wicked laughter, and can’t stop the grin that spreads on his own face even after he tries. 

* * *

Nearly four blocks away, a man hides in his large navy blue van, the rough collar of his black turtleneck sweater irritating his skin, sweat beginning to pool at the base of his hairline as he sends yet another worried glance toward his colleague. 

“Are you sure about this, boss?”

“Of course,” the other man gruffly replies. “Where there’s crime, there’s an overly heroic vigilante. Just do as I say.”

“It just seems pointless to attempt murder on an innocent civilian.”

He doesn’t quite see it, but he can _feel_ his boss’s icy glare piercing through him, and a chill that reaches beyond his bones runs up his spine and to the nape of his neck, where the shallow remains of a cut wound still burn hot red everytime he moves his head. He swallows.

“This is the fourth time you’ve questioned King’s motives,” his boss says, voice painfully even and eyes on the busy street ahead. “He won’t be as forgiving with his blade as he was last time. If King wants the Spiderman, we get him the Spiderman. No matter what pins we have to knock down to get to him.”

“Yes, boss.”

* * *

John McClane is about midway to washing blood off his feet when Peter feels it again, the telltale feeling of something going wrong. He feels like he’s stepped out of his body and yet gone nowhere, like his blood’s stopped pumping and his lungs have frozen over, the familiar high-pitched white noise ringing inside his mind again. He can feel it like every other time, the sliver of cold air that makes its way down his spine and the way every hair on his body stands on edge. He lunges off the couch immediately, ignoring Ned’s surprised yelp and stripping his clothes off, eyes widening at the way MJ stares at him before promptly remembering that his suit is underneath them.

“Uh, Spiderman emergency. Take my stuff to Ned’s. I’ll see if I can join you. Bye!”

And with that, he darts out the tower and swings off, following where his gut leads him and hoping he’s not too late. 

Back in the monument, both Ned and Michelle see him zip off out the window, the latter’s breath hitching almost imperceptibly.

“You were hoping he was shirtless, huh?” Ned teases once Peter’s out of their vision, stifling back laughter when the girl whips her head towards him, eyes wide as if she’s scandalized. “What? Don’t look at me like that. I’m just really good at reading people.”

Peter lands on another rooftop, eyes searching for… he’s not too sure what, yet. His heart’s beating unnaturally fast, and he contemplates not for the first time turning around and forgetting about the whole ordeal, but his _spidey senses_ get the best of him and he swings again, in a desperate attempt to find what his powers already know from atop a different building.

It takes him a while, but as he’s swinging from one light post to another above a busy street, he sees it. The same blue van from the other day. 

_Why don’t bad guys just quit it, already?_

He’s in the air before he knows it, trying his best to keep up with the vehicle seemingly gliding through traffic like it’s nothing. He knows what the driver’s trying to do. He’s not an idiot. At the speed the vehicle’s going at, it’ll be out of Midtown and in a smaller, less populated district in less than ten. He follows as fast as he can, calling out for Karen once he’s got his vision locked on the car. 

“Karen, how many people in there?”

“Three. Two men and a woman. One of them seems to be holding the woman down.”

“Can you tell where they’re headed?”

“Not sure,” she replies, “They’re driving straight down 9th Avenue.”

 _Well that sucks,_ Peter thinks to himself before he looks up and his gaze lands on a skywalk ahead, and an idea suddenly forms in his mind. He runs runs forward at full speed, launching a web at the skywalk and propelling himself forward until he’s on top of it and ahead of the vehicle. When the van passes under him, he nearly free-falls at its side, shooting a web out last minute so that he can use his body’s momentum to swing towards the passenger window and break the glass. It shatters instantly and the car swerves off to the side, narrowly missing a parked car and crashing into a tall building. Peter’s vaguely aware of the screams he hears amidst the tan-ish dust obstructing his view, but the only thing he can focus on is the sounds of the laboured breathing coming from somewhere on the backseat, and he almost blindly grabs the woman and pulls her out of the van as she holds him tightly. He notices a few scratches and a shallow cut on her right arm, but is thankful that there’s no other visible damage.

“Really, guys? Don’t you have better plans on a Friday?”

“Lay off, Spiderboy,” one of them spits back, pulling on the neck of his turtleneck and wiping the blood that’s dripping from his hairline. “You don’t know who you’re messing with.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, moving backwards and covering the vehicle in his webs so that it’s essentially stuck to the ground, the two men stuck inside, “I don’t hear that one everyday at all. Try harder next time. I’ll send you a book with pointers!”

And with that, he swings off, reassuring the woman in his arms that she’s safe as he takes her back to where she was taken from. In the back of his mind, the thought that this was too easy nags at him, but he promptly dismisses it. He must be getting better at superheroing. 

“Hey, boss?” One of the men says from inside a tent of still-solid web tissue, “I think we failed.”

“No, you idiot,” the other man replies, before returning his attention to his earpiece, a small black orb barely visible even from up close. “You got anything?”

 _“Been following him down 9th. He just ran into an alley,”_ the rough voice on the other end whispers. _“He’s taking his mask off, that stupid son of a - Oh.”_

“What?”

 _“He’s just a kid, boss.”_ Then, a beat later: _“Looks like a high school student. Late teens at most. We can’t possibly-”_

“Do what you have to do. King wants the Spiderman. And I want the pictures.”

_“But he’s just a kid.”_

“It’s his head or yours. Make your choice.”

The line goes dead for a second, and then the faint sound of a camera shutter.

* * *

Peter’s exhausted by the time he gets home, his legs a little sore from all the activity. He slowly makes his way into the room, too drained of his energy to even notice his aunt on the couch, a book in her hand and a worried expression on her face. It doesn’t even cross his mind to go join his friends at Ned’s. They’ll understand.

“You okay?”

He wordlessly nods and drops next to her, thankful when she puts her book down and pulls his head onto her lap. 

“Where’s your bag? Did you lose it again?”

“Ned,” Peter mumbles, eyes shut as he revels in the comfort of his aunt near him. “He has my phone, too,” he remembers then with a slight jolt of panic. Mr. Stark’s going to absolutely freak out if he doesn’t text him with a report. He has yet to live down the time the man had flown up to his bedroom window to make sure he hadn’t died after his phone had shut off. “If Mr. Stark calls,” he drawls lazily, “tell him I survived.”

“Did you stop any bad guys today?” she asks, and something about her tone confirms that she knows he did. He doesn’t bother lying.

“Two guys trying to pick up a woman. It was an easy fix.”

“You sure?”

“Positive,” he reassures her, and a sigh escapes him as she starts running her fingers through his hair. He thinks he hears her say something after that, but as sleep takes over him, his thoughts blurring into oblivion, he can’t quite catch what it is.

* * *

The communal lounge is dark, illuminated by nothing but the light filtering in from the giant glass panes that make up one of its walls. Tony slowly sits down on one of the stools lining the massive island in the center of the piece, eyes catching the tray of cupcakes in front of him. As if on cue, his stomach rumbles, and he takes this as a sign, lifting the transparent cover off the tray and reaching for one of the cakes. 

“This is why I’m marrying that woman,” he says to no one in particular, and then, addressing FRIDAY, “Anyone come here today? Other than Pep.”

“After two days of asking in vain,” the A. I. replies, sass evident in her voice, “Yes. Peter Parker and his friends were here in the afternoon.”

Tony nods, a certain unfamiliar but pleasant fluttering at the front of his chest, and bites into the cupcake. Almost immediately, he spits it out, swearing under his breath as he gets up to fetch himself a glass of water.

“That was courtesy of Ms. Jones.”

“You couldn’t tell me earlier?” he asks incredulously, opening the cupboard where the glasses are.

“You didn’t ask.”

He lets out a soft chuckle, wiping the excess water off his lips and putting the glass down. “He had fun?” he finds himself asking before he can overthink it too much.

“He wasn’t here very long.”

“But was he… I mean, he was doing okay?”

Something at the back of his mind tells him that he’s being too nosy, prying into the life of a teenager who doesn’t really need him as much as he likes to think, and that maybe it’d just be wiser to back off and leave the kid to his own devices, but even all that fails to convince him to just leave Peter Parker be. He tries, he actively tries to distance himself from the boy, because nothing good can come out of this relationship, and yet everything Peter does draws Tony towards him. First his unwavering heroic recklessness, then his familiar obsession with the will to do good, and now something much more abstract, a concept too blurry to name but stronger than anything Tony’s ever felt nonetheless. 

He tries not to read too much into it. He’s far too tired for that.

“He was fine. Although he left in a hurry.”

“Superheroing, probably,” Tony concludes, before getting up. “Tell me if he ever seems wrong, okay?”

“Will do.”

“Night, FRIDAY.”

“Goodnight, Tony.”

He makes his way to the elevator in the back of the room, humming a tune he swears he heard on the radio but can’t quite place, and FRIDAY shuts all the lights behind him.

* * *

 _“That’s him?”_ Kingpin asks, a hint of humour in his otherwise threatening tone, dragging Jameson’s limp body behind him as he makes his way to his men. “You lost this guy to a _kid?”_

He lets go of the man’s collar, and Jameson lands on the ground with a heavy thump. Fisk slowly walks up to the laptop, its dull screen displaying a grainy image of the kid’s profile. He nods once, to no one in particular, and the younger man closest to the computer adjusts his hoodie and walks up to the thing, clicking once on the mousepad and displaying the next picture. This one, though taken at a weird angle, displays the teenager’s entire face, and Kingpin looks oddly intrigued as he marches toward it, before announcing, loud and clear: “Two days.”

No one dares question what he meant. He’s glad.

The men scatter back to their own devices, leaving Wilson alone in front the boy’s picture. He’s young, not more than graduating age. He’s got the face of a child, eyes like they’ve seen the world but are not yet tired of it, and, most intriguing, he’s _small._ There’s a lot of youth hidden under the suit, Kingpin realizes. He simply wishes the world were more benevolent and he were able to save this young man’s soul.

But alas, when a boy takes to flying in the sky, shooting webs at random, and calling himself a hero, the point of no return has already been long crossed. This boy is no longer just a boy; he’s Spiderman. He’s a part of the top tier. 

Kingpin doesn’t believe in the top tier.

* * *

There’s some sort of news bulletin on the screen in front of him, but as he tinkers with Spider-Armour MK II, Tony can’t possibly bring himself to care any less about the shockingly alarming rate at which graffitis have begun to appear in Midtown Manhattan that the blonde on TV keeps blabbering about. He’s deep into his work when Pepper startles him, a hand on his thigh as the other places a cup of coffee on the table in front of him. She’s wearing a curious expression. 

“For Peter?”

“Who else?”

She nods once, understanding, and he thinks for a moment that maybe the conversation’s over before she speaks again: “What are you adding to it this time?”

“What do you mean?” he asks, gently placing the nanotech particle housing case and peering over at his fiancee. She gives a deep sigh, though she’s got this weird expression on her face, not quite amused and not quite content, but somewhere in between.

“You can stop worrying about him, Tony. He’s a big boy.”

“I’m not worried, Pep.”

“Please, babe,” she starts, laughing softly, “Sometimes you worry about him like he came out of your own womb.”

He laughs at the quip, but not much is said between the two of them afterward. Maybe Tony’s okay with that, for now.

* * *

On Sundays, Peter does chores. He vacuums his room and takes out the trash. He folds his laundry and goes out to buy milk and bread. Sometimes, he helps the nice lady from upstairs bring up her groceries. Other times, like today, he brings the car out back and washes it.

He’s rarely ever bothered while he does this, save for the occasional friendly wave from the lovely old man who works at the laundromat, so the sudden hand at his shoulder makes him flinch a little, and he’s on edge, ready to climb up the nearest wall when a man, tall and buff and in a three-piece navy suit similar to the ones he’s learned not to trust in recent days, stands in front of him.

“Peter Parker,” he says, and nothing else, but Peter _knows._ It happens again, the feeling of blinding white coursing through his entire body, like a camera flash has gone off inside him. The blinding noise still rings inside his head, but he knows how to do about it now. He knows what it means. 

Peter scans his surroundings as quickly as he can, hands already in his back pocket, ready to pull his mask out at the mere twitch of any of creepy dude’s muscles. The two seem to stand still like that, no movement other than the rapid up and downs of their chests as they breathe quick breaths in Peter’s apartment complex’s parking lot. 

Suddenly, the man lunges forward and grabs Peter by the torso, pulling him towards himself. There’s an unexpected, sharp pain above Peter’s right hip, and he realizes when he manages to pull back a little that he’s been stabbed. He holds a hand above the wound as he limps away from the man, hissing with every step he takes backwards. He glances up to his apartment building again, thankful more than anything for the fact that May’s gone out with a colleague of hers for the afternoon. 

The thought that she’d kill him for getting stabbed crosses his mind, and he sobers up immediately, realizing, all jokes aside, that he immediately needs to take this man away from his home and aunt. Still wincing at every movement of his hips, though the blood has just begun clotting, he manages to climb up the building’s walls, making sure to stay in the man’s sight but just out of his reach, and quickly drops the clothes he had on top of his suit to the ground and pulls his mask on. He watches the man, momentarily staring back at him in perplexion, pull out something from behind his back, and Peter doesn’t risk finding out what it is before he’s darting forward, running down the street as fast as he can, ignoring the hissing pain, shooting out a web strand and swinging off window ledges when he hears gunshots firing behind him.

He’s much faster than the man following him on foot, dodging the bullets with ease until a van, _the_ van, finds its way in front of him, cutting his path as another man, another one he cannot recognize, pulls a firearm at him. Every shot that misses Peter causes his heart to thump louder, and he’s acutely aware of the few people lining up on the edge of the streets, eager to see a superhero brawl in the middle of nowhere in Queens. 

He’s not too sure what to make of the men following him, but is definitely determined to find out as he turns into an underground parking lot, crawling on the ceiling in zigzags as he watches the car follow him down to the second level. Once down, he distracts the vehicle enough to have a clear view of its right side, shooting a web at both the tires. The car skids to an eventual halt, both tires and webs burned off with the friction, and Peter doesn’t miss a beat when the strange man steps out, coughing. He lunges toward him and grabs him by the collar of his turtleneck, holding him in a firm but threatening grip from the lot’s high ceiling, watching the handgun he’d just pulled out clatter on the ground beneath them. 

“Who are you?” Peter growls, and the man hanging by his arm takes a quick glance downward, shivering, and swallows.

“I’m just doing what the boss says to do,” he frantically replies, eyes wide.

“What does the boss want you to do?”

“Hurt you.”

“Why?”

“Kingpin isn’t a big fan of bullies,” he says apologetically, “They’ll kill me if I don’t kill you.”

“Sorry for ruining your plans. Also I’m not a bully.”

“I know you’re not,” he admits, the sincerity in his voice jarring. “You’re just a kid.”

And then, he reaches up as best as he can and digs his teeth into Peter’s flesh, the sharp and sudden burst of pain igniting at the young man’s wrist causing him to let go. 

The man in the suit falls unceremoniously onto the concrete ground, with a loud thump and the sound of something breaking. _A lot of somethings_ breaking. Peter refuses to look down, at first, eyes shut tight and ragged breaths threatening to catch in his chest, an acute pain slowly rising up his throat as his entire body shakes uncontrollably, a loud, rhythmic throbbing at his temples. His hip still stings and there’s a much more prominent burning at the inside of his wrist, but he refuses to acknowledge any of it. Refuses to believe any of this is happening.

“Your heart rate is unnaturally high, Peter. Even for you. And your suit needs immediate attention,” Karen says to him, clear as day despite what’s just happened, and it’s a painful reminder that his partner isn’t as human as he likes to pretend she is. “Would you like for me to call for help?”

“Is - Is he…” Peter asks in between dry sobs, eyes still pressed shut and his entire body threatening to give out and crash down alongside the man.

“He’s dead,” Karen says, and that’s that. “It happens.”

 _“It what?”_ Peter manages to whisper back, his breathing finally slowing down a tad, the pain building up in his chest still stinging him with his every heartbeat, and he slowly unclasps his eyelids. The little light filtering through to him blinding him momentarily. “It can’t just - It can’t just _happen.”_

“It is impossible to save everyone,” she calmly replies, and then, again: “Would you like for me to call for help?”

His eyes are fully open now, and he turns his head towards where the man fell. He’s on his back, one arm sprawled out and the other, twisted and hidden under his torso. One of his legs lay straight, with the other crossed over it at an impossible angle, and under him, flowing out from either his head, neck, back, or all three, Peter’s not so sure, is a disturbingly large pool of blood.

He slowly drops down, quietly crawling over to the dead body as if a single wrong move will scare it away. He crouches down by the man’s head, reaching out, maybe to touch him, before suddenly retreating his arm. He watches how _normal_ this stranger looks, all his mean lines faded away now that he’s not actively trying to shoot the boy. There’s a stillness to him, a humanity Peter doesn’t often see in bad guys. He’s dressed like any other guy you could see, a simple black turtleneck and some worn jeans, unlike the other men in matching navy blue suits. 

Unable to tear his gaze from him, he notices a roll of parchment, halfway tucked into the guy’s pants, and curiously pulls it out. Unrolling it unveils barely legible writing, scrawled across the piece of paper in a obvious hurry, and although it takes Pete a few moments to decipher the message, he feels his blood freeze inside his veins when he finally does, the tears that had not yet formed in his eyes making their presence known.

_The Kingpin has her. I don’t know where._

“Peter,” he hears Karen say from for a third time, and there’s a sort of urgency to her voice that the boy doesn’t recognize. “Would you like for me to call for help?”

Taking a deep breath and running his shaking hands down his dusty suit, the fingers of one hand catching in one of the tears while the others close a fist around the note, he quietly replies: “Call help for him. I need to see if May’s alright.”

He’s never been in such a hurry to get home. Peter tears through oncoming traffic, almost knocking down street signs as he zips down the road, the pale blue sky above him threatening to turn into a deep, maleficent violet. Once, twice, he asks Karen to call his aunt. Both times he’s sent to voicemail. By the third time, the phone’s switched off. He arrives at his apartment complex just mere seconds before the sun dips into the horizon, his heart sinking as he notices that the bucket and rag he’d had to leave out were still by the car. He quickly scans the outside of his bedroom window and steps in, on his toes in case Kingpin, whoever he is, or any of his men are waiting. 

The place is empty. The lights are all off, and there’s an uncharacteristic stillness to the apartment. No television playing as white noise, no water running down the kitchen tap as she begrudgingly washes the dishes, no familiar humming as she sits on the living room couch, the light of a single lamp on while she’s engrossed in some weird Nicholas Sparks novel MJ would be ashamed of. It’s dreadful, and it feels like the walls are closing in on Peter’s stomach, the words on the man’s note flashing before his eyes as he he collapses on the kitchen floor, head in his hands and tears in his eyes. Next to him lay the house phone that won’t reach May’s number, it’s constant, long, monotonous error tone long forgotten as Peter finally cries into his shaking hands. 

“Peter,” Karen’s voice comes again, as if concerned, “There are currently zero items on Mr. Stark’s schedule.”

In between wet gasps, he cannot find the strength to answer her, but he nods to the void nonetheless, almost as if convincing himself more than anyone else. He stands up on shaking legs, making a move to swing out the window before his eyes catch the handset, laying on the ground still ringing. He picks it up and presses the button to hang up. Keeping the device in his hands, he slowly, quietly crawls out of his house. 


	4. Chapter 4

_“Welcome, Peter,”_ FRIDAY greets him like she always does, and he doesn’t answer as he walks inside and unceremoniously drops to the ground, receiver still in his hand, with his back to the glass pane and the heels of his hands pressed into his eyes. 

“Pete?” a voice calls, _Tony Stark’s_ voice calls, and were he not feeling like every piece of him is slowly disintegrating, turning to ash and disappearing without his consent, Peter would have probably been shocked. 

“Peter, what happened?” Mr. Stark asks, dropping to his knees in front of the boy, firmly grabbing the wounded wrist with one hand, eyes widening at the sight while the other goes down to hover over the patch of blood on his right side. 

He holds Peter’s gaze, questioning, and when he doesn’t get an answer, brings one hand up to Peter’s shoulder and the other to cover the side of his face, cradling it in a sort of way. _This,_ Tony thinks, _this I should’ve never let happen._

Something snaps inside Peter at the gesture and he lets go, the tears he’d fought the whole way here breaking down his barricades and streaming down his face as he drops the phone, hearing it land on the ground while he almost unconsciously moves forward and collapses against Tony Stark’s chest. He doesn’t know how, and he doesn’t know why, but his arms find their way around the man’s torso and his face is buried into him, tears soaking his t-shirt. To his credit, Tony Stark holds on, embracing the kid like he’s suddenly afraid to let go.

“Peter,” he whispers into the boy’s hair once his sobs have winded down to a quiet occasional sniffle. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Peter thinks that maybe this is the time to pull away, but he can’t bring himself to move away from the heat and safety of his mentor’s arms and the comforting sound of his heartbeat right under Peter’s ear, quick but rhythmic. He doesn’t quite notice it, but he nuzzles in further.

“I killed a guy,” he says, barely above a breath, and were it not for the way Tony’s arms around him stiffen just momentarily at the confession, Peter would’ve thought he hadn’t heard. He pulls away, immediately missing the comfortable touch, and looks his hero in the eye. “There was a - a guy sent to kill me,” he starts, voice shaking, “and he works for some guy, and the guy told him that he would kill him if he didn’t kill me and then he bit me and we were on the ceiling and I let go and he just… he just…”

“Shh, Pete, it happens” Tony says, but Peter knows it’s a hot steaming pile of _bullshit._

“No it doesn’t! People don’t just _die_ when you’re out saving the world! You’re a hero. And if you were me, you’d never have let them take May and you’d never had let Turtleneck fall and - and, you wouldn’t have come crying to some random building in the middle of town because every second you spend at home reminds you of how much of a _failure_ you are!”

“Who took May?” Tony asks simply, ignoring the rest of Peter’s outburst.

 _“I don’t know!”_ Peter whines, “I’ve never met him in my life; only heard his name and --”

“What’s his name?”

A silent moment goes by and they both stare at each other, and then: “Kingpin.”

Tony deflates. He doesn’t know the guy. He has half a mind to call out for FRIDAY and get on it right away, but Peter’s right in front of him and he’s clearly shaken up and he feels like a _failure._

“You’re not.”

“W- What?”

“A failure,” Tony clarifies. “You’re not. You never could be, kid.”

“But Aunt May.”

“Listen,” he says, rising from on his knees and reaching a hand out for Peter to take, who gratefully accepts it and follows the man to the couch. “I once let a guy almost kill Pepper, and she’s the single most important thing in my life. You get that?”

Peter nods.

“I watched her fall to her death, and all I could think at the moment was _‘how dare I how dare I how dare I how dare I-’”_

“I think I get the point,” Peter whispers.

“I wanted to die,” Tony admits. “I wanted to grab the bastard who hurt her and jump into the fire, and I wanted to take him with me so we could all be sure it was over for good.” He pauses. “But then I wouldn’t have met you and we wouldn’t be here, would we?”

Peter’s not too sure where this is going. Tony is very aware of this fact.

“Point is: we screw up, sometimes. I screw up, you screw up. But you’re _never_ a failure, Pete,” he says at last. “Not when you’re doing the right thing. You can lose, that’s for sure. Maybe you even have more than anyone to lose. But you don’t fail so as long as your heart’s in the right place. And I’ve never seen your heart be anywhere else.”

Peter finds himself at a lack of words, so he’s nodding again, and he finds comfort in the fact that Mr. Stark doesn’t seem to be in much better of a state.

“I’m sorry for running into the tower,” he finally tries to break the tension.

“It’s not like it’s your first time,” Tony counters with a small smile. “By the way, I’m gonna get you back for what your girl did to my cupcakes.”

“She- uh, she’s not my girl.”

“Okay. Let’s see what we can do about those injuries.”

He walks up to the giant cupboard against the opposite wall and pulls out a briefcase, opening it once he’s seated again. Silently, intently, he applies a mixture of ailments on the wounds, ordering Peter to strip out of his suit and into clothes he grabs out of Dum-E’s arm after applying a _generous_ amount of gauze.

“How’d you have clothes my size?”

“Pepper goes shopping sometimes. We’ve got a drawer-full.”

Putting the first-aid kit where it belongs, he drops the spidersuit on the coffee table in front of them. 

“We’ll fix that later.”

They’re quiet after that, sitting silently in each other’s company under the illuminated LED panel above the couch. Mr. Stark stirs once, and for a second, Peter thinks -- or _hopes,_ maybe -- that he’s going to hug him again, but nothing of the sort actually happens, and the boy tries to squash the surprising disappointment that rises within him. 

Finally, Mr. Stark gets up, making his way to the giant window and crouching down to grab the phone Peter had brought along. He examines it.

“I’ll find out who the guy is,” he promises, avoiding eye contact. “I’ll find him and we’ll go get May together, okay?”

“I can help--”

“I know you can, but you’re exhausted. May’s going to kill me if I don’t return you to her in tip top shape.”

“She’s _my_ responsibility.”

“And you’re _mine,_ ” Tony says, firmly. Peter knows there will be no further argument. 

“You’ll tell me as soon as you know?” he asks dejectedly, carefully getting up to make his way to the exit.

“Of course. Where are you going?”

“Home.”

“No, you’re not,” the man admonishes, walking to Peter and grabbing his arm to lead him to the elevator. “You’re staying here tonight.”

“I don’t want to cause any trouble…” Peter mumbles, but every thought he might’ve been having is lost at the sight of the frown Tony Stark has directed his way.

“I’ll show you to your room.”

The elevator ride up is silent but quick, the dread settled upon Peter’s chest alleviated for a moment when FRIDAY announces their arrival to the 27th floor, the big metal doors opening on a large floor, about the same size as the sixth but much less empty, with multiple doors lining the two walls perpendicular to them and an enormous, _absolutely freaking adorable_ stuffed rabbit placed at the center on a classy black circular rug. 

“Don’t mind that,” Mr. Stark laughs, “I convinced Pep it’s too cute to just throw out.”

He follows him to the far right side of the room and Peter realizes in surprise, as they reach one of the doors, that his name is written on it, engraved into a marble plaque on the door. 

“In case you ever felt like staying the night,” Mr. Stark clarifies, before gesturing towards a familiar black screen at the door’s side. “Take us inside.”

He stares at the man in shock for a split-second, but quickly regains his composure and brings his hand to the pad, watching the little red light turn green and hearing a soft clicking sound come from within the doorframe. He pushes the door open, jaw dropping just slightly as he takes in the sight in front of him. The room’s painted in black, with white moulding and a white carpet covering every inch of the floor. It’s about twice the size of Peter’s bedroom at home, one of the walls with a periodic table painted on one wall in white paint and on the other one, the one adjacent to it against which rests the queen-sized bed’s headboard, is a single quote: “In a dark world we find ourselves, and a little more knowledge lights our way.” The bed covers are, comically enough, red and blue, and there’s a single nightstand next to the bed, on top of which lies a water bottle and a framed picture of the New York skyline under a bright red sky. 

“No,” Peter breathes as he steps into the room, noticing then a dresser and mirror in the corner of the room. “No, it’s very nice. Thank you.”

“Bathroom is next to the elevator,” Mr. Stark says, “and if you need anything, you either find me in the workshop on the 23rd, or Pepper on the floor right above this. If you need anything at all, you understand me?”

“Yes, Mr. Stark.”

“Stop talking to me like I’m your teacher.”

“T- Tony, then?”

“Good.”

Mr. Sta- _Tony,_ turns to leave, then, but freezes halfway, as if changing his mind. He wordlessly walks up to the nightstand next to Peter, and places the handset he’s still holding down. After that, he makes his way to the boy, stopping just a few inches from him and lifting his hand to place it on Peter’s head, his fingers almost absentmindedly caressing his scalp.

“I _will_ find May, Peter,” he says. “And you’ll be first to know when I do. Sleep well, okay? There are clothes in the dressing table drawers, if you want to change. We’ll fix your suit together in the morning.”

A silent understanding passes between them, and finally, Tony leaves the room. He closes the door behind him, leaving an exhausted Peter behind. Lazily, Peter reaches the dressing table and opens the bottom most drawer in search of a hoodie, opting for a grey one with the Stark Industries logo embroidered onto it. He quickly puts it on, briefly wondering if FRIDAY can see them when they change, but far too tired to keep pondering the thought. 

“FRIDAY? Are you there?” He asks once he’s under the covers.

“Yes. Is there anything you need?”

“D’you happen to know how to not feel guilty about killing a guy?” 

“I’ve never killed a guy, Peter.”

“Right,” he pauses, “Could you please turn the lights off?”

The lights immediately go off, and Peter lets out a small yelp at the sudden change. 

“Would you like a night light?”

Silence, and then: “What have you got?”

“I can reproduce the constellations as should be visible above the tower right now. Is that okay?” 

“That sounds nice,” Peter replies, “Thank you.”

“Goodnight, Peter.”

“Night.”

* * *

The lights in the office are dim, and there’s a constant dripping sound that’s starting to drive them all insane, though they pretend not to hear it. There are only a handful of men present, each of them ignoring the others’ presence as they keep their attention on their own devices, the constant, robotic rhythm of furious keyboard tapping interrupted only by the sudden entrance of another colleague, a man in a suit identical to theirs, who walks by them, not acknowledging them as he makes his way to the largest of the men, seated at a desk at the end of the room, his grey suit a little tight around his chest, the rigid material stretching with his every calculated movement. 

“They found a body, King,” he announces.

The impressive man slowly lifts his head, his face betraying no sort of emotion.

“The kid killed him?”

“It seems. They say it was a drop from a high altitude.”

Wilson Fisk, still stoic as ever, rises to his feet, the gesture sparking a wave of quiet anxiety around the room. At the desks around them, the occasional typing becomes more furious, more erratic. Somewhere in the left half of the room, a man resists the urge to wipe his hand over his forehead, hoping his neighbours don’t notice. They don’t. They’re too busy trying to look inconspicuous. 

A collective sigh runs across the large, cold room when Kingpin wags a finger at the man in front of him, a devilish grin spreading across his face as he leads him towards the exit, closing the large, white door behind him. 

They walk down a large, grey corridor, taking a secluded stairway down a couple of floors and landing in a small piece, like a storage room of some sorts, only lit by the ever-weakening light of a single light bulb placed above the door frame.

Something stirs in the darkness, and, pressed against the wall on the far back of the small room, about halfway hidden by a pile of boxes placed in front of her, is the middle-aged woman the man remembers seeing pictures of when he’d compiled Peter Parker’s file. She looks nothing like that woman now, her eyes sunken, hair wild and unruly as it covers most of her ashened face. She looks paler than he’d expected, too. Her skin is a warm ivory shade, and there are bruises that line the parts of her upper arm that he can make out from his limited perspective. 

The woman is bound to a heavy metal seat, each leg attached to one of the chair’s legs and her arms pulled behind it. There is a piece of rope keeping her torso flush against the back of the chair and a piece of cloth is tied over her mouth, as well. Slowly, the thought of Kingpin fades from his conscience and he finds himself staring at the woman. He carefully watches the way she tries in vain to wiggle out of her constraints, struggling uncontrollably for a few seconds before going limp again, her eyes stuck on the men, clear defiance in her gaze. He sees the way the muscles in her upper arm clench when she moves, how the little he sees of the base of her throat stiffens, how her chest rises and falls erratically with her every uneven breath.

“Frederick!” a voice yells next to him, resonating through the crowded piece as if played on an amplifier, and the man freezes. “Do not look at her that way!”

Frederick doesn’t know what’s happening; can’t process it until he feels someone grabbing him by the back of the head and slamming him against the nearest iron shelf, one, two, three times in quick succession. His vision blurs suddenly, his head throbbing, overtaking him in every way, and the little he can make out of the room starts spinning, slowly at first and then picking up speed, too fast for him to make out any of the details anymore, before the pain takes over and he drops to the ground into a pool of his own blood. 

“The Kingpin has rules,” the large man says after a second, eyes leaving the dead body on the ground and reaching up to meet May’s, “Rules that I’ve told them all they would do well to memorize. Among these rules is one stipulating that we do not think unfashionably of another’s woman -- _ever._ He had forgotten that, it seems. It’s a shame, I was going to introduce you both.”

Still within her restraints, May keeps as still as she can, ignoring the way she can feel her pulse in every part of her body.

“Your boy’s got gusto,” the man says, and her blood freezes in her veins. _Peter._ “He killed one of my men, it seems.”

_What? No. No, her poor child. No no no no no no no no --_

The Kingpin laughs, honest-to-God _laughs,_ then, throwing his head back in amusement. “He’s a worthy target.”

May struggles against the rope at her wrists. 

“Boys are easy to destroy, Milady. Do you know why?” he asks, kneeling in front of her. “Because they’re still selfish. A man? A man who knows well knows that nothing in the world is worth more than the collective good. A boy thinks but of his own.” He pauses for a second, and then he smirks. “Your boy thinks but of you. What a shame it’s going to be when I crush his skull against one of these walls myself.”

May’s chair rattles as she tries her best to lunge towards him, but he easily holds the chair down, a devilish grin spreading across his face. 

“Don’t feel bad, Milady. I promise I’ll let you see him. In fact, I promise I’ll let you be the _last_ person to see him.”

* * *

He can’t think. 

The lights are too bright, the room is too cold, the clock is too loud, _something_ is wrong, preventing Tony from putting together the puzzle that’ll lead him to May Parker, but for the love of all that is good, he cannot figure out what it is. He’s scoured the entirety of the internet, hacked into police files, studied the crime patterns in the area for the past three years. And he’s got nothing. 

There is no Kingpin. None that he can trace, anyway. The removal of the baby monitor protocol from Peter’s suit is also a disadvantage at this point, rendering Tony unable to trace his footsteps since he first encountered the guy. There’s nothing on him, and Tony suspects he runs underground, but if he has an army of men like it seems he does, sending a different man after Peter every time, then he’s got to be a hotshot, right? He’s got to be _somewhere,_ but he isn’t. Unless --

“FRIDAY, you wanna pull up any news headlines mentioning Spiderman?” he asks her, taking a step as he watches dozens of articles pull up on the screen in front of him. If he’s so hard to trace, this guy probably goes by another name. And does none of his dirty work himself. “We just gotta find a weak link that’ll lead us to him.” He swipes some of the pages off the screen, waving his hand up at FRIDAY in a “keep-em-coming” motion, and the A. I. complies, filling the screen up once more. His eyes quickly scan over them once more, ready to dismiss this new batch as well before a pair of articles, from the Daily Bugle, written just two days apart, catch his attention.

The first article, written by a J. J. Jameson, has the title: “Rogue Vigilante Spiderman is Harsh, Gutsy, and Impulsive - But He Still Saved My Life,” prompting an eye roll from the billionaire, and the second, written by a Connor Austen, has a much more interesting one: “Days After Attempted Kidnap, Daily Bugle Owner Goes Missing.”

He gently taps on the second headline, watching an article pop up on the screen as he intently reads every word, every letter. There’s gotta be something in here he can work with.

* * *

He can’t sleep. He’s tried. He’s been trying for a couple of hours, actually, drifting in and out of consciousness only to be pushed back out of slumber by the gutting sound Turtleneck made before his body hit the concrete. 

Peter can still feel the semi-healed bite mark on his wrist as if it were fresh. 

He tries to take Tony’s words to heart. He did nothing wrong. The guy would either have done exactly what he did, or killed Peter. There was no other way. _Spiderman did nothing wrong._

The words would perhaps seem a little more honest if he didn’t have the image of Turtleneck’s dead body etched into his memory. 

He tries giving sleep another chance, closing his eyes and resisting the urge to scratch his wrist for some reason, desperately thinking of anything, anyone but Turtleneck. He doesn’t quite realize when he slips across the veil. All that Peter’s mind is aware of as he jolts upright from his slumber is a loud, familiar noise coming from atop the dresser a couple of feet away from his bed’s footboard. His eyes snap open and he finds himself wondering where he’s ended up for a second before he’s reminded that Mr. Stark had let him stay overnight. Projected on the ceiling above him in a soft, yellow light, the makeshift constellations FRIDAY’s put up are the only source of light in the room. On the dresser, the handset he’d brought from home rings again, taunting. He hops off the bed and nearly runs to it, grabbing the receiver with a shaking hand. 

“Hello?”

 _“Spiderman,”_ the voice on the other end says, deep and heavy and slightly amused even, it seems, _“For a boy who’s managed to destroy one of my own, you seem to be lacking of courage, hiding out like that.”_

“I - I’m not hiding from anyone.”

_“Don’t lie to me, boy.”_

“Where’s May?”

The man on the other end laughs. 

_“I thought you’d never ask.”_

He tells Peter to meet him in an old pizzeria, somewhere down on the southern side of Brooklyn, and Peter listens, never uttering a word, attempting to commit the guy’s voice to memory as every fibre in his body quivers at the thought of his May, _his aunt,_ in the clutches of this cold, monstrous bastard. 

_“And Spiderman,”_ he adds right before he hangs up, _“I hope you’re not counting on bringing friends along. I’d rather not have the blood of an innocent woman on my conscience..”_

* * *

It’s a trap. _It’s a trap, it’s a trap, it’s a goddamn trap,_ and yet Peter still finds himself swinging off a lamppost in a suit with an unhealthily large tear down the length of his torso, nothing but Karen’s voice guiding him to the dragon’s lair.

There are few cars out at this time of night and it’s eerily quiet out, like even the city itself has fallen asleep for a bit. The sky above him is pouring black ink, the only real illumination coming from the streetlamps and store signs below. 

“You are approaching Gionarro’s. Would you like to contact Mr. Stark?”

“Stop asking,” Peter all but growls as the abandoned pizzeria comes into view. Sure enough, a stupid blue van is parked at its front.

Peter slowly crawls down the mangled brick wall and steps onto the chipped sidewalk, every hair on his body on edge, every muscle in him ready to fight back at the first threat. The threat, however, never comes. The stillness in the air remains, and as quietly as he can, Peter opens the door to Gionarro’s and steps inside. 

It’s dark. It’s dark and there’s no one inside, and Peter knew this was a trap, and he needs to run away _right now,_ and --

“Ah, Mr. Parker,” a heavy voice booms within the cramped walls of the restaurant as a man steps in from a back door, “I’ve been expecting you.”

The man is large, abnormally so, tall, bald, and donning a pristine grey suit over an ochre shirt and a -- what is that, a blue scarf? His features are barely visible in the dim light, filtering in only through the door he’s just opened, even that largely covered by his impressive form. In his right hand, he holds a slim, wooden cane, and the skull carved at its top does not escape Peter’s notice. 

“Kingpin,” Peter breathes, “Where’s May?”

Kingpin smiles. 

“I promised her I’d let you see her, Spiderman, and I do intend to keep my word. Follow me.”

He turns and walks into the light, motioning for Peter to follow him. Scared to death, and maybe even bordering on insane, he does.

“Activating taser webs,” Karen says into his head as they go down a narrow flight of stairs, and staring at the back of his foe’s neck, now joined by about a dozen men who had been waiting for him behind the door, Peter nods at no one in particular.

They lead him down a sketchy corridor, with yellow walls and cobwebs where moulding should be, then up another staircase until the man at the front, a tall guy with greying hair sporting a navy blue suit, opens another door. This one leads to a much smaller room, filled with metal shelves, stuffed to the point where Peter can barely breathe by the time he gets in, bumping into the creepy men as he tries to move to the front. There’s a faint acidic smell to the room, nearly drowned out by the much more prominent scent of disinfectant.

He has to push a couple of the men out of his way as he struggles to meet Kingpin again, arriving to his destination only to see his aunt, very alive, very pale, very _not okay._

“May!” he cries, nearly pouncing to get to her, tears threatening to blur his vision beneath his mask. He’s on his knees in an instant, running his fingers over the bruises that cover her upper arms and carefully ungagging her mouth while Kingpin and his posse watch them, unmoving. 

Peter has half an urge to just start shooting, maybe even activate enhanced combat mode for once, but has to control himself. Not until he’s sure May’s safe, he keeps thinking, not until she’s far away from here.

He’s working on the knots around her wrists, Kingpin and his men still creepily staring like this is an everyday thing for them. Peter finally undoes the ropes, reaching for the ones at her ankles, as well, venom lacing his next words to the big guy.

“What do you want?”

“I simply seek reform, Spiderman,” comes the immediate reply as Peter and May stand up, the latter leaning against her nephew for support. “And you will not let me have it.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I am simply a man with a dream,” Kingpin replies, voice an octave deeper now, more threatening. “You’ve had your fun, Peter,” and then, to his henchmen, “Get her out of the way.”

It’s not so much of a thought out attack as it is a defensive reaction when Peter shoots the two guys making a move towards his aunt in the face, watching in horror as he sees them violently shake and lose control of their bodies. They collapse onto the ground, unconscious. He shoots another web, sending a few men shooting back and sticking to the iron shelves behind them and grabs May’s hand, ready to swing off --

\-- until a heavy arm grabs him by the back of his neck and forces him to spin around, barely giving him the opportunity to register what’s happening before a fist collides with his jaw. He hears May’s scream, coming from somewhere behind him, but barely has the time to contemplate it as another one of the men charges at him from the side, slamming the chair they’d used to restrict May into Peter’s rib. 

A sharp pain makes its way up his body and Peter shoots a strand of web onto each of them, then pulling the two makeshift ropes in, causing the men to collapse face-first onto the ground. A third man, meanwhile, has taken a hold of Peter’s head, attempting to pull him to the ground from the back, his plans foiled as the boy ducks down backward, slipping his head out of reach as the mask slips off his face, still in the dude’s hands. The man then charges at him and manages to throw him down on his stomach in one swift move, one arm pinning his chest down from the back while another holds his right arm against it. He manages to keep him pinned for a few moments, but Peter is quick to react, using his strength to fold his legs in and push his torso up, knocking the guy’s face in the process. His rib still stings, as does his hip, and he’s a little short of breath as he gets to his feet, shooting a web grenade that manages to throw back several more men headed his way. He barely fights off a couple more, one of them managing to tear the suit where it covers Peter’s back with the metal rod he’d tried to use. 

Peter’s main concern, even as he feels blood rushing from his head and begins to see white spots where bad guys should be, is to get to a higher vantage point, far enough to be out of the men’s reach but still be able to take them down. If only he could get out the door on the other side of the piece, if only he could find a way to get May up to the roof and come back and kick these guys’ asses and --

“I can see your gears turning, Spiderman,” Kingpin says, grabbing Peter by the throat and pushing him against a metal rack. “Whatever it is you’re conspiring, it won’t happen.”

Peter’s lungs burn, his throat raw and stinging like it’s been impaled with an invisible blade, his vision threatening to turn a bloody crimson as his eyes seem to have trouble remaining in their sockets. Nonetheless, he tries to put an arm up and aim it at the man holding him captive. Blindly shooting, he’s surprised when Kingpin lets him go, allowing him to collapse on the ground as he laughs above his head. 

“You play a good game,” he muses, grabbing Peter by the hair and pulling him up. “It’s a real shame we have to end it.”

Outside, on the deserted, dark street, May Parker, light-headed and weak, tries her best not to collapse as she tries to map her way to the only place she can hope to get help, a ragged, desperate mother’s plea falling from her lips as they form Tony Stark’s name.


	5. Chapter 5

The sudden sound of an elevator ding distracts Tony from his hologram, a blue scaled-down projection indicating the location of every crime he can possibly link to said “Kingpin”. None seem to carry any hard proof of his explicit involvement, but every news article and social media account of the crimes recall the same details Tony remembers Peter mentioning as they briefly spoke: a navy blue van, and several men in suits, often carrying firearms. One of most intriguing of the lot comes in the form of a police report filed by a certain Cheryl Mondler, describing how she was taken off the streets of Manhattan by two men in a van who kept mentioning how “their boss wants Spiderman.”

_Not if Tony gets to him first._

“Babe,” Pepper startles him, yawning as she comes to embrace him from behind, nuzzling into his back as her arms loosely wind around his torso. He immediately turns to face her and presses a kiss into her hair, feeling her tighten her grip around him. 

“What time is it?”

“About four. Come to bed.”

“You know I can’t. Not tonight,” he apologizes, sighing. “How’s Pete?” 

“Hasn’t come out of his room,” she answers, pulling away slightly, “I’m going to go check up on him now.”

“Poor kid.”

“Hey, Tony,” Pepper says, bringing a hand up to rest on his cheek, “You care so much for that boy. He’ll be just fine. We’ll find his aunt, and maybe we can let them live here for a couple of days until they’re safe. Pete’s already got a place; May can take one of the guest rooms. It’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, I hope so.”

There’s a sudden loud ringing behind him, red light flashing where his map had previously been. FRIDAY speaks above the long, monotonous sound.

“Peter’s suit is heavily damaged. He is in need of immediate assistance.”

“He’s in what now?”

“Here are his coordinates,” FRIDAY replies, simply, flashing a location in front of Tony’s face. “We must go now.”

“Is he alone?” Tony asks in a panic, letting go of Pepper and tapping a finger onto the housing compartment on his chest, suiting up.

“No. There is an estimated amount of about twenty individuals.”

“And May?” Pepper asks.

“Karen’s scanner cannot locate May Parker,” the A. I. replies, “Accessing nearby CCTV footage and traffic lights.” She goes silent for a while as Tony holds his breath and turns around, grabbing a small, hexagonal metal object off his desk and walks over to the landing pad outside his workshop. “May Parker is currently on Dumont Avenue. She seems to be headed this way.”

“Send someone to pick her up,” Tony orders, “Bring her straight to Ms. Potts. I’m going to go get the kid.”

“Tony, don’t you think you should have some sort of plan?”

“The kid’s dying, Pep. I promised him that he and his aunt would both be fine, and now he’s in serious trouble. I can’t - _I’m not letting anything happen to him.”_

Before Pepper can answer, there are two metal suits flying out in the early Manhattan sky, disappearing into the darkness and leaving her alone to worry for the lives of three.

* * *

The red dot on Tony’s screen leads him to an abandoned complex on the other side of town. He lands outside the doors, curiously eyeing the sign for a pizzeria that seems like it shut down a decade ago. It seems dark inside, empty save for the old pieces of furniture barely hanging onto their wooden legs. 

“FRIDAY, take a peek inside.”

She runs a quick scan of the perimeters, and several red silhouettes materialize on Tony’s visor. There are a few on the second floor of the beaten building, sitting in front of computers and doing who-knows-what. Most of them, however, are to be found at the back of the deserted restaurant, in a small room lined with trolleys and shelves of some sort. Among them, thrown onto the ground flashing white as his stats pull up in front of Tony’s eyes, is Peter. A large man seems to be standing over him, reaching back down to Peter’s unresponsive body as he picks him up again.

“Oh no you don’t,” Tony warns, and the next thing he knows, he’s crashing through the abandoned pizzeria’s glass doors and headed straight for the old stock room. His arrival seems like a surprise to many of the men, who’s eyes have widened and a handful of whom have begun taking a step back from the enraged billionaire. Their boss, the man in the middle with his dirty, stubby hands on _his_ Peter’s arm, however, smiles as he lets the boy fall limply to the ground.

“Iron Man,” he muses, “I’d never thought it in my luck to bring down two of the city’s vigilantes in a single night.”

“Let the kid go,” Tony says curtly. 

“Your boy is a major roadblock,” the guy says, walking forward, glancing at the bright housing compartment in the center of Tony’s chest. “He impresses me.”

“Give me one good reason not to blow this joint up to pieces, Dr. Evil. Maybe I’ll want to hear you out.”

A pause, more dramatic than anything else, and then: “Because it won’t stop me.”

“From doing what, exactly?”

“Oh, Anthony. From rebuilding the whole damn city into what it was always _meant_ to be.”

The man charges at him, then, tackling him to the ground before he can react, and Tony fires his repulsors in retaliation, a sure warcry in his own terms.He manages to throw Kingpin into the wall at the back, watching the plaster crumble beneath the impact as the man, bloodied lip and stupid suit torn, slowly stands back up and smiles, rolling his shoulders in a challenge. 

“You’re not going to win,” Tony warns, moving to make his way toward Peter as another set of guys are on his back, easily fought off but an essential distraction, Tony realizes, when another three now stand where Peter lay, two others holding his unconscious body.

“We have company,” FRIDAY says into his ear, and footage of about a dozen blue vans, quietly lined up outside and around the pizzeria, plays on his helmet’s screen, before one of the men in front of him points a gun in his direction, immediately followed by some kind of disturbance that makes the images flicker in and out and then completely disappear, Tony’s visor going blank as FRIDAY’s voice is drowned out by those of footsteps outside the doors leading into the small room. They’re kicked down and men enter, clad in bullet proof vests and helmets as they all aim their weapons at Tony and fire. Every few moments or so, amidst the mess, a static buzz rings within his suit and his vitals flash on the screen for a brief moment, along with broken syllables from his A. I., but she cuts off so frequently that Tony finds it impossible to process any of it. The bullets come raining down on him, luckily repelled by the armour but damaging it, and damaging it fast. Even so, Tony fights them off the best he can and moves until he has Peter within eyeshot, throwing the housing for MK II onto him and watching the black particles cover his body. An involuntary sigh of relief escapes him as he watches the lean, yellow spider emblem form on top of his nearly still chest. 

“I hadn’t known you’d come,” Kingpin says amidst the roaring of the bullets, somewhere from the back, “but I’d anticipated it. Where the cub goes, Tony Stark, the lion often comes roaring.”

“You sure hold a mean grudge,” is all Tony manages to say, trying his best to ignore the intermittent static ring before blasting the men above Peter off his body, grabbing the boy and flying out the door in a wild hurry, watching Kingpin’s men diminish to mere tiny specs as he gains altitude. Momentarily, the static ringing within his helmet again almost catches him off-guard, but it ends soon thereafter, replaced by the familiar voice of his A. I.

“There was an interference with the radio signals,” is the only explanations she offers as Tony holds onto Peter for dear life and makes his way home.

“We’ll talk about this later. You get the kid’s aunt?”

“She’s with Ms. Potts.”

His only reply is an acknowledging grunt and the tightening of his grip around Peter’s waist, his free hand coming to support Pete’s neck as he increases his thrusters’ power and flies back to the tower, leaving Kingpin and his men free to escape. For now. Just for as long as it takes to safely get the kid back to the woman he belongs with.

* * *

“Why’d we let them go, boss?” one of the men asks as Tony Stark zips out of sight and into the dark of the early morning sky.

“It works,” Fisk realizes with satisfaction. “He lost communication with the suit.”

“How do you know?” another inquires.

“You fool, he didn’t know you were barging in. If he had, you’d have been wiped out.” A brief pause, and then, “Prepare the trucks. It seems we’ll be purging New York of Spiderman and Iron Man in a single shot. The rebirth begins tonight.”

* * *

In 45 years, never once has Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts ever been this nervous. And believe her, she’s had more than her fair share of worrying over the time she’s spent knowing Tony Stark. Nothing, however, seems to compare to the way her hands shake right this moment, a faint May Parker in her bed and an A. I. that claims to have lost communication with her fiance, leaving her with no means of communication with either of the boys, and no idea of their status or whereabouts. She paces wildly up and down the length of her room, occasionally calling on FRIDAY in hopes of an update or having to put a hand to May’s forehead, reassuring her that her nephew is okay when she painfully murmurs his name in her sleep.

“Connection with Stark Enhancile MK X has been re-established,” FRIDAY’s voice suddenly announces. “Mr. Stark and Peter Parker are on their way home.”

“Are they okay?”

“Peter is in bad condition,” she says, “but Mr. Stark is fine. They should be arriving shortly.”

Pepper nods absentmindedly and makes her way up to Tony’s workshop, impatiently pacing near the landing pad as she eagerly awaits his arrival. He gets there a few seconds later, clutching Peter in a fierce, protective, borderline _desperate_ embrace as both their suits de-materialize, nanoparticles bleeding back into the matching silver contraptions on both their chests. 

“Oh my god,” Pepper breathes as she runs up to them, throwing her arms around Tony in a relieved hug, only realizing Peter’s critical condition when she steps back and takes a look at him, blood running down the side of his face and out of his ear, his lips swollen and marred in dried clumps of blood as well, the colour drained from his skin. Apart from the nanoparticle housing, everything he has on him is torn, his suit split down the length of his abdomen and along his left calf. His mask is no longer serving its purpose, either. He’s covered in dust and white plaster, and sweat glistens at his hairline and at the nape of his neck. He limply falls into her arms as she reaches out for him, carrying him, with Tony’s help, to an empty table to the side of the workshop. 

“Where’s May?” Tony asks, tearing the worn red and blue fabric off Peter’s body. “She good?”

“Exhausted. I don’t know how she made it out. She could barely stand. She mumbled something before falling unconscious; didn’t catch it, but it was probably about Peter.”

“She’s lucky she ran out when she did,” Tony sighs, “the bastard did a number on the kid. Probably would’ve done worse to her.”

With that, he pulls the last of the suit off Peter’s body, revealing his thin, pale frame, lined with innumerable cuts, scrapes, and bruises, several of them beginning to turn green, including a large one right on his swollen sternum. The wound on his hip, now pink, looks almost like old, unimportant news compared to the scars he’s just amassed. There’s a sharp intake of breath next to him, and he turns his head to see Pepper wide-eyed and holding back tears as she reaches a hand out as if to touch Peter but immediately thinks against it, instead clutching the t-shirt she has on at the chest.

“Why him?”

Tony sighs, graciously accepting the first aid kit Dum-E hands to him, absentmindedly patting the robotic arm like he sometimes does. “I couldn’t tell ya. Seems to me like Bald-And-Nasty’s just holding a grudge.”

“He can’t possibly be wanting to kill him just because he stopped a kidnapping, Tony. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know,” comes the reply as Tony presses a wet gauze to a cut on Peter’s forehead, dabbing it slightly until the excess blood is cleaned off the boy’s face, only to reach for another gauze to press to his bicep, this time. “He said something about ‘purging the city’, you know, something about taking down two heroes in one shot.” He hisses when Peter twitches slightly as the saline solution makes contact with an open wound. “It’s possible he wants less to do with revenge and more with just getting rid of Spiderman for good.”

Pepper seems to contemplate that for a bit. “It would make sense. The guy’s been operating for years, based on the information you had up earlier. Now he’s just afraid because he’s on your radar. He thinks getting rid of the threat will fix that.”

“Not if I get rid of his mole rat ass first.”

“Tony,” she admonishes, giving him a stern look. “We’ll come up with a way to stop this guy, a _proper_ plan, alright? Let me just bandage Pete up and take him to bed first.”

Tony doesn’t try to argue against her; they both know that that’d just be a waste of time they no longer have.

* * *

The five floor ride from Tony’s workshop to her bedroom has never seemed so long to Pepper, wearily watching as her fiance, exhausted as ever but unable to take a break, stands on the opposite end of the metal compartment, Peter splayed bridal-style in his arms, his rhythmically rising and falling chest providing a sense of relief to both the adults. In her usual, oddly comforting monotone voice, FRIDAY announces their arrival and opens the door onto the large, dark room, the only source of light within it being the lamp at May’s bedside that she had insisted Pepper please keep on.

As they slowly make their way toward the bed, she gestures to Tony’s side of it, letting him know to put Pete down there, next to his aunt. Tony’s only acknowledgement comes in the form of a half-distracted nod, before he reaches the right side of the bed and does as he’s told, gently laying the kid down before pulling back. Carefully, he runs a trembling hand through Peter’s hair and presses his lips in a thin line as if contemplating something, then abruptly turns to get back to the elevator. Pepper shakes her head, walking over to tuck Peter under the covers. He’s heavier than he looks, tough to move, but she manages just fine. By the time she looks up, Tony’s out of sight, presumably back down to his workshop trying to figure out the most painful way to take a guy out. She leans down, presses a feather-light kiss on Peter’s forehead, and whispers: “Sleep tight, bud,” before sympathetically rubbing May’s arm from over his body and going to reach her fiance. 

The further she walks from the duo, Pepper realizes, the more the concern in her is replaced by a fueling rage, a deep, seething hatred for a man she’s never met. For a rare, fleeting moment, she even finds herself thinking of how she wouldn’t mind Tony blowing the guy to pieces. And that maybe, _just maybe,_ part of her would want to be there as it happened.

* * *

“Move it!” Fisk cries out as his men carry in crates atop crates full of weapons into the room, the light of day slowly creeping in through the pristine windows. “Iron Man will be back. I will not allow him to escape again.”

The men comply, neither betraying any sort of emotion as they walk in and out of view, moving mechanically, automatically. It isn’t ideal; Fisk knows this. He is no monster. He holds no sympathy for bullies, but if a little bit of fear aids him in purging New York of those who have unfairly decided they can rule it, then so it has to be. 

He’s taken down dozens, from politicians to news tycoons, desperate in his quest to build a new New York, one that lives up to its image. He’s been called plenty of names: evil, monstrous, heartless, but the words don’t faze him. He knows within himself that he means no harm. A city isn’t a caterpillar. It does not spin a cocoon and wake up a butterfly. A city crumbles and fades; it must die before it is reborn. 

And its rebirth begins today. 

Iron Man believes he can control the city and the lives of those in it from his comfortable spot up in the sky, with no fear and no price to pay. His tyranny, the reign of a man so entitled and so unaware of his own faults, will come to an end. Fisk will put an end to it. 

The pen in his hand clicks rhythmically as he watches the Monday sunrise from his window, afraid to move from his spot lest he miss his wife and child as they drive to the boy’s school like they always do early on these mornings, his steely resolve to save the city nearly crumbling down as his heart yearns for their lost love. 

Behind him, a couple of the men glance his way and revel in the rare display of humanity; they know from experience that it won’t last very long.

* * *

The thick, heavy, sludgy black that envelops Peter refuses to let up, heavy on him despite his best efforts as he fights to gain consciousness. It presses down on his eyelids, his chest, his limbs, every part of his body aching to spring back to action but unable to, like some kind of intangible force has him physically restrained. Still, he fights, pouring his all into it as the sea of black seems to shallow in some places, waves of light threatening to seep in where his eyelids struggle to lift. A solid, warm surrounds his heart, beckoning him back into the abyss, but Peter refuses to acknowledge its call. He needs to be somewhere, to defeat someone, to protect something…

A dim yellow light floods in and Peter’s eyes flutter open, his confusion lasting only a split second before the thought hits him like a pile of bricks to the forehead. _May._

He tries to sit up, resisting every last bit of the temptation to fall back into the darkness, every part of him aching to various degrees, from constant, low throbbing to sharp jolts of pain as he moves around. His eyes open with great difficulty, pupils taking their time to adjust to the dark lighting of the unfamiliar room Peter finds himself in. His blurry vision clears up eventually, though the room’s still spinning just slightly, limbs still too heavy and sore to move properly, and apart from the slow pulsing at his temples, there’s an intermittent sting where his hairline meets his forehead. Every time he moves, a sudden, sharp stab near his lower ribs causes him to hiss.

He was tucked into the right side of a large bed, he notices, a sleeping form curled up next to him on the left, their identity hard for Peter to make out in the dim light of the single night light on in the room. Slowly, he leans closer to the snoozing body, lifting the covers off their face, a billion and one questions running through his head. In the soft, yellow glow, May’s face appears next to Peter’s hand, and a soft, relieved sob escapes him as he nearly dives onto her, folding himself on top of her in a fierce embrace, the pounding in his head forgotten, before she stirs and he’s forcefully reminded to move off of her, a gentle hand remaining on her forehead until she seems fast asleep once more. Almost immediately, there’s a low ding coming from somewhere behind her, and Peter lifts his head up to the sound in time to see an elevator door open and Miss Potts - Pepper, begin to walk in. 

She has a jug of water in her hands, her hair let down and in a t-shirt and pyjama pants - an attire in which Peter’s never really seen her before. Even with the overwhelming pain at his chest and throbbing head, Peter can see the way her steps falter a bit as she sees him. She’s practically jogging to him after that, though, hurriedly placing the jug in her hand on the nightstand by May before running around the bed and crouching down by its side, bringing a hand up to rest on his cheek while she examines his face in the near obscurity of the room.

“Are you feeling better?” she asks, reaching down somewhere behind the nightstand next to her and turning on a lamp atop it. “Does it hurt?”

Peter simply nods, though to which question, he himself isn’t even sure. Pepper moves to take a seat next to him, an arm around his shoulder as she holds him against her chest, and he finds himself enjoying the contact, leaning into it. 

“How - how’s May?” he asks, his voice coming out as more of a pleading whisper than the question he’d intended it to be. 

“She’s safe,” is all Pepper says, still holding him against herself, “and so are you.”

“Is he mad?” 

Pepper doesn’t answer; just simply makes a move to pull away from Peter, both hands resting on his shoulders while she holds his gaze. “He might _pretend_ he is.”

“I’m sorry I ran off without telling you guys.”

“Did you have a reason?”

“He threatened to kill May.”

“Then you’re good,” she says, standing up and smiling at him in encouragement. “Tony’s not all that much more different from you, Peter. He sees a lot of himself in you,” and then, after a brief moment, “and so do I.”

He wants to thank her then, or maybe give her the biggest, bone-crushing hug. Instead, he opts to stand up beside her, ignoring the various degrees of pain that shoot up his torso with the motion, sparing one more glance to May. 

“Can I see him?”

“Can you walk or does it hurt too much?”

* * *

Tony doesn’t even realize Pepper’s back until she’s calling out his name from behind, pulling him out of his trance while he tries to figure out a way to avoid the signal loss between he and FRIDAY again. 

“Tony, drop it for a second.”

“Just let me figure this one out, Pep. Just a minute.”

“Mr. Stark?”

 _That_ gets him to turn around, dropping the small wire he has in his hand and immediately turning around to look at Peter, restraining himself from running over to him. 

Standing behind him, with a scar running down his forehead and another on his lip, Peter looks _alive_ again. He’s still got bruises down the length of his arms where they’re exposed from underneath the t-shirt Pepper had put on him, and the bandages peeking out from where his shirt meets the jogging pants he has on nearly brings tears to Tony’s eyes, but he catches himself before anything manages to seep through. The boy’s here, he’s safe, but only for now. They can get all gooey with each other once this Kingpin guy is down for good.

“Hey, kid.”

Peter takes a couple of hesitant steps forward, slightly limping, prodded by Pepper with a gentle hand at his back, her eyes firmly set on Tony’s and communicating some kind of silent order that goes completely over the boy’s head. Instead of dwelling on it for too long, Tony simply reaches out to guide Peter to the table, where the housing compartment for the Bleeding Edge armour lies in two separated halves. Behind them, Pepper makes a move to go back towards the elevator.

“I think I’m going to go see if the aunt’s got a fever or anything. Even sleeping, she looks kind of sick. He had her in the storage for a while.”

They’re quiet for a while after that, Tony continuing to play around with the wiring in the tiny device as Peter leans against the table in an effort to get a closer look. 

“Grab a seat,” Tony finally says to him, breaking the thick, heavy silence. “You’re probably still all banged up. I’m not sure how long you’re supposed to be healing, but it’s only been-” he turns his head in the direction of the single, small wall clock near the level’s entrance, “five hours.”

“I’ve been beat up before. It’s no big deal.”

“Of course, your life’s no big deal. I can pick up any other ol’ Peter Parker off the streets for the shits of it whenever I want. It’s not like your wellbeing affects anybody.”

He doesn’t know why he says it -- only that he does, and that in the moment, he _means_ it. He waits for Peter to react, not daring to release a single breath should it break his hardened facade. 

“I’m sorry,” the boy says, slowly taking a seat on the stool Tony wordlessly slides toward him and nearly collapsing onto it, quietly hissing at the sudden jolt of pain. 

“I was only four floors away, you know,” Tony continues, clamping the nanotech housing shut and motioning for the screens in front of him to fade out. “I told you to come to me.”

“He threatened to kill May.”

“You think I’d have let him hurt either of you?”

“I - I didn’t know… what to do,” Peter breathes then, “It’s my job to keep her safe and --”

 _“You can’t keep anyone safe if you’re dead, Peter,”_ Tony interrupts passionately. “Don’t you _get_ that?”

“I just thought I could handle him! And he had _May!_ I couldn’t think!”

Part of Tony wants to smack this kid across the head, right now. How idiotic, irresponsible, _inconsiderate_ can he possibly be? But another part, the more important part, perhaps, that part gets it. It understands why he’d jump head first onto a one-way flight into a battle because the person he loves most is threatened. Would he not do the same for Pepper? For Rhodey? Heck, would he not do the same for Peter?

Had he not _done_ the same for Peter just five hours ago?

“I don’t know how to tell you to keep yourself safe anymore, kid.”

“Aren’t you the one who told me that there’s no way I can fail if my heart’s in the right place?”

“You should know by now that I’m not the best person to listen to in times of crises.”

They share a quaint laugh, one that feels more like a mutual acknowledgement of their feelings than an actual reaction to any sort of humour. It’s quick and quiet, shared amongst just the two of them, a moment of theirs that belongs to no one else on the early hours of this new Monday morning. 

Neither of them attempt to keep the conversation going. Perhaps neither of them really knows how. 

“So,” Peter finally breaks the silence, going from vulnerable teenager to Spider-Man like the flick of a switch, “what were you doing while I was out?”

Tony lets out a deep breath, cheeks puffing and eyebrows raising with the action. “Uh, well, alright, so when I came to get you, somewhere in the middle of it, Fisk managed to mess with the communication between FRIDAY and I. She just kept buzzing in and out. I was thinking he planted a bug or something, but she’s clean. She just… disconnected and reconnected over and over.”

“Fisk?”

“Your Kingpin guy. I ran a facial recognition scan on the bastard.” He gestures something into thin air, and a bunch of screens pull up in front of them. “Wilson Fisk. Multimillionaire and asshole extraordinaire. Owner of several businesses,” he continues, skimming through the text projected next to him, “including pharmaceuticals, his very own clothing line, and some heavy involvement in politics. And, you know, whatever shady stuff isn’t on his public record.”

“Like kidnapping.”

“Kidnapping, drugs, possible money-laundering -- but don’t quote me on that -- and murder. Nothing officially tied back to him, but definitely a high possibility of _several_ murders.”

The stool beneath Peter squeaks against the floor as he shifts his weight atop it. 

“And do you know why he, you know, went after May?”

“I’m not sure,” Tony sighs, “but as far as I know douchebags, I’d say it had less to do with her and more with finding a way to make you vulnerable.”

“Right, but I only stopped like, two abductions. How mad could he have possibly gotten?”

“Mad enough to apparently want to eradicate all superheroes?”

“You know, when May told me that my attitude might land me in serious trouble some day, this is so not what I expected.”

“Always listen to the women in your life, kid. Chances are they’re onto something you can’t even begin to imagine.”

“Noted,” Peter says with a smile, and then, “Maybe he used a signal.”

“What?”

“Kingpin. Maybe instead of bugging FRIDAY, he broadcasted his own radio waves or something, at the same frequency. The waves would overlap. That would explain why she was fading in and out. His signal was probably interfering.”

Tony stares at the kid, a mixture of pride, disbelief, and maybe just a _hint_ of annoyance displayed on his tired face. 

“That makes sense.”

It’s fairly obvious, too -- though Tony would never admit that out loud. It only makes sense. The sporadic connection, the battle of dominance between FRIDAY and that horrible, horrible buzzing sound? And all leaving nothing, not a single trace of damage in either the suit or its motherboard? An overlapping wave of the same frequency seems to be the most logical solution if any. 

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”

“It’s wild what you can do when you sleep every once in a while,” Peter jests. “So, now that we know that: how are we taking the guy down?”

 _“We_ are not doing anything,” Tony snaps, whipping his head back to face Peter with so much force it’s a wonder it didn’t fly right off. “Superhealing or not, your ribs are still in a thousand pieces. Taking you there is like handing Baldie the recipe for a Parker-and-Stark kebab.”

“No,” Peter firmly says, awkwardly wiggling on the stool in an attempt to find a position that makes him look more imposing. Finally, he settles on sitting with both legs tucked under him and his back held as straight as he can manage it without wincing from the pain. “If I go alone, he beats me to shit. If you go alone, he outsmarts you, because clearly the guy knows you enough to replicate the frequency at which you communicate with your suit. Mr. Stark - _Tony,_ if we’re going to run this guy to the ground, there needs to be some hardcore teamwork involved, y’know? Like I come in with a ‘whoosh!’ and you fly in with a ‘kablamo!’ and together we just kinda go ‘wham bam shazam!’ on them like they’d never imagine.”

“If I choose to ignore all the onomatopeia you just released there, you might be onto something.”

“Really?” Peter asks, almost in shock at his mentor’s easy acceptance.

“Yeah, sure. It’ll be fun.” _Plus I’m sort of sure there’s no way to stop you._ “But we make a plan. We walk into Fisk Enterprises on adrenaline alone and he’ll hand our asses back to us on silver platters. You get that?”

“Deal. Do I get to consult with my team, first?”


	6. Chapter 6

Fisk has never been a fan of his laboratories. They’re far too eery for his taste. Cold and empty. Moons ago, Vanessa had called them “lifeless”, even. He’d laughed it off back then, ushering her out of the building without a second thought while his employees continued to work on developing a more affordable alternative to diabete treatments, telling her that no place so full of goodness could ever be dull. 

He hadn’t truly believed it then, and he still doesn’t, now. If anything, he hates them more. The labs still conduct his research, his workers churning out new experiments by the day, experiments he believes in, too. The dullness, however, as he peers out the glass panes that surround his office, watching people in surgical attire type things into computers, transporting crates, or even simply organizing their desk space, the dullness Vanessa had once pointed out to him is suddenly much more prominent. 

He’s the closest to his goal that he’s ever been, and yet he can’t bring himself to be satisfied for it. Iron Man and Spiderman will come to pick a fight, that’s for sure -- they’re far too arrogant not to, and Fisk will answer their challenge in the way that it’s meant to be, finally plunging New York into its age of glory and prosperity like he’s dreamt of since he was a little boy. He tries to find satisfaction in the mental image of their limp bodies, the tangible proof of the end of their tyranny, but the thought seems to make things even worse. Some forbidden part of him reminds him that William used to be fascinated by superheroes. 

He doesn’t want to be the man who kills his son’s heroes, but maybe he needs to be. He’s learned to be okay with that.

* * *

“I told you I’d kill you,” MJ says with Peter in a headlock, face impassive while Tony, Pepper, Ned and May try their best to stifle their laughter around them. They’re back on the sixth floor, everyone except Pete and MJ seated on the couches, watching the girl barely blink as Peter tries his best to pry her arm off from around his neck. How they got into this position, no one could say. One second, both Ned and Michelle are running into the room, blurting out a thousand questions at a time and the next, Ned’s got a bag of chips - courtesy of Pepper - and May’s arm around him as they all amusedly watch Michelle torture the young soul. 

“MJ -” Peter manages to to breathe out, “Let go… _ribs_ -”

“Don’t move and they won’t hurt,” she replies nonchalantly, but lets go of him nonetheless, acknowledging Ned’s whine of protest with a slight nod. “You’re lucky you’re still alive. I would've pulled out the kickboxing moves.”

She makes a move to check the swelling at the base of his ribcage, immediately removing her hand when he flinches at the contact, but otherwise stays at his side. 

“He beat you up real good, huh?”

“Yeah… yeah, he did me a solid.”

“You’re lucky you’re not dead. I would’ve hunted your soul down if you did that to the team right before finals.”

Peter believes her, 100%, even if it’s only because of the way she’d pushed Ned out of the way to hug him upon her arrival, or the way her fingers shook when she reached to touch the cut on his forehead before changing her mind and attacking him. If he’d died, she would’ve made sure he regretted it.

Tony’s apparently decided he’s seen enough, silently getting off the couch and putting a hand on Pete’s shoulder and leading him back to the couch. MJ follows, grateful when Pepper scooches to the side to make space for her. She smiles like she doesn’t know what else to do in their sensitive situation, but Michelle sees that she’s trying her best to make sense of it. Michelle likes that. She can respect that. And watching the way Tony Stark won’t keep his eyes off her friend, maybe she’s starting to understand why Peter won’t ever shut up about them. She thinks maybe she wouldn’t, either.

There’s a lot more to be said, she knows that from the text she and Ned had gotten during first period today, but right now feels just like the proverbial calm before the storm that comes up and destroys everything in its way, and if this is the last moment they all get to sit down and enjoy, then she’s got no complaints about that.

* * *

The new suit feels weird, to say the least. Not in the bad way, of course not. Just in the way where Peter can’t seem to get over the fact that if he were to choose not to wear clothes under this particular spidersuit, he’d essentially be _naked._

Weird. 

It’s almost entirely black, save for a long, sleek yellow spider emblem running down the middle of it, and it’s definitely lighter, thus much more efficient, in a way. He, Ned, and Tony played around with its programming, making a lot easier to use, adding and removing functions as they deemed fit. (He got rid of Instant Kill Mode -- though he kept the badass red eyes for interrogation purposes.)

It’s not the look he’s used to, but rather a little more sinister, a little darker than he’d like. Although, with his old suit in shreds on Tony’s worktable just a few feet away, the understated pride a newly arrived Colonel Rhodes’ nod conveys, and the awed expression on both Ned and May’s faces, he doesn’t really have an excuse not to wear it right now. He can fix the colours later, right?

“So when do we, you know, kick Kingpin’s ass?”

“Language.”

“When do we get to fuck Kingpin up?”

“That’s it, kid. You’re grounded,” Tony deadpans, though the look in his eyes betrays his words. Then, “Alright, let’s have it. Tell Rhodey the plan.”

“Again?”

“We need to be sure everyone has it down.”

“Fine,” Ned sighs. “Here’s what we do: According to all previous data collected on Wilson Fisk, he spends most of his time at his laboratories in Brooklyn, which, if any of the twelve articles printed about him in the last week are to be believed, are currently operating nearly 24/7.

“What we’re going to do -”

“What Peter, Rhodey, and I are going to do.”

“What _Peter, Mr. Rhodes, and Mr. Stark_ are going to do is find a way to get Kingpin’s attention while one of them sneaks in and places this transmitter somewhere past the security scanners on the first floor,” he says, holding one of Tony’s newest contraptions in his right hand. Peter doesn’t quite understand what it is and how it works, but it seems to make a lot of sense to his mentor and best friend, so he decides to trust them on this one.

Ned continues speaking. “This helps MJ and I hack into the building’s electrical mainframe. Then on, all cameras, mics, and even the heating in there? It’s all me and her. We have access to all the footage on the cams and even most of what can easily be hacked into in the computers. Basically, this is how we slow them down as well as collect all the good stuff we need to take ‘em down.”

“The only downside,” MJ adds, “is that we couldn’t figure out a way to stop them from communicating with one another if they’re using wireless earpieces. And we still don’t know how they managed to mess with Stark’s A. I. before, even though we have a guess.”

“If they manage to do it again, there’s a possibility we all lose connection at some point during the battle,” Peter adds. “It’s only Mr. Stark, Mr. Rhodey, and I. If we’re within earshot.”

“Pepper and May will be here, at the tower, doing hotshot CEO stuff. Pepper’s job is to make sure May is okay and can not hear what Ned and I are doing.”

Tony stares at them for a second, then turns to General Rhodes.

“That seem like a plan enough for you?”

“Barely.”

“So what do you suggest we do?”

“Me?” he says, raising his eyebrows in amusement, “I think we Tony it. Get in there and just make sure no one dies.”

 _Wait, this guy’s in the army, right? That’s not a joke? This is the same guy?_

“Suit up, Rhodey.”

“On it.”

* * *

Fisk has never been a fan of idleness; it simply isn’t of his nature. He is a man of action, of growth. He calculates and strikes without pause. He is tireless, determined and ready for change. There are very few things more abominable in the world than a man who waits on another to pursue his goal.

And yet, he finds himself here, on the 27th floor of Fisk Pharmaceuticals Laboratories, in the corridor right outside his unfairly huge office, staring down the glass pane in front of him in his wait for Tony Stark. Waiting, patiently, for his opponent to make the triggering move.

Iron Man will bring the fight to him; he knows this for a fact. No man of that stature, no holder of an ego that disproportionately blown up can resist the temptation to destroy for long. Iron Man craves chaos, seeks it out. When he doesn’t find any, he sets out to unleash it himself. It would usually burn Fisk inside and out, the way he’s at the mercy of a man none much deserving of his patience, but he decides to let it slide just this once. It is all the more rewarding to claim your victory when the battle was handed to you by the adversary. However, it’s been nearly fifteen hours since their last encounter, and Stark still hasn’t shown his face. Fisk suspects he’s afraid after what had happened to the Spiderman.

Oh, the things Wilson did to that boy. It’s a shame, really. Fisk would never hit a child; and by no means one so visibly resembling of his own son, never. If it weren’t for the costume, Fisk might have grown to admire the boy’s tenacity. In another lifetime, perhaps, he, Parker, and William would have done some real good things for the city. If only the poor child wasn’t so blinded by his pretentious title. If only he were to see that no good can be done for those at the bottom by a man who rests comfortably at the top. It’s a shame to see such a good heart go to waste.

He waits a few more hours for the man in the blazing golden armour, but when the billionaire doesn’t show up, all Fisk can do is watch the sun set atop the New York skyline, hoping against hope that it’ll have the chance to rise above a grateful city, one that is finally free, at dawn.

* * *

“Testing. Testing, one, two, three...”

“For the twelfth time, Leeds, the coms work.”

“Just checking, Mr. Stark.”

“Okay,” Tony shut him down, eyes briefly glancing down to Peter, held flush along the left side of his body and then to Rhodey, just ahead. “The first thing we do is stop referring to me like I’m about to give you detention. My mother gave me a first name for a _reason,_ you know.”

“Now’s not the time, _Anthony,”_ Rhodey’s voice admonishes teasingly in front of him.

“You know I hate that,” Tony replies, before addressing the boy on the other side of the line again. “Alright, Ned. The coms work, okay? Now _please_ tell me that thing we did is gonna work.”

“Absolutely will.”

“I’m trusting you, son. Now tell me what floor to bring the party to. I can see the building from here.”

Ned moves his attention from the keypad in MJ’s hand next to him and his gaze flickers up to the small, holographic screen in front of him where the view from Tony’s visor is displayed.

“You can do this yourself, you know.”

“Want you to feel like you’re contributing.”

“I have stuff to do,” he says, returning his attention to the keypad. “MJ? Could you just check and tell me what floor Kingpin is on?”

“Also, how many dudes are there up there?” Peter’s voice suddenly pipes on the line.

“FRIDAY,” MJ calls out, “Where’s Fisk and how big is his posse?”

The small screen suddenly stretches out to about three times its original size, and one of the floors is now highlighted in orange, blinking once, twice before it dramatically zooms in, and Michelle realizes it’s live footage. She sees bodies, their silhouettes red as they move around, and somewhere towards the left, in white, is the guy they’re looking for. At the very bottom of the projection, MJ sees some text.

“Twenty-third floor, east corridor, staring straight ahead. He’s just sort of creepily standing there. About seventeen other people in his direct vicinity, but they don’t seem like they care too much about what he’s doing.”

“Thanks!” Peter excitedly exclaims from right under Tony’s – well, his mask’s –nose. “That’s to our left.”

“We should just keep going straight. If your girlfriend’s right, he’ll see us coming if we go that way.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Still? For a superhero, I’d peg you for someone with more guts, kid.”

“She can hear you, you know,” comes the unimpressed reply. “Also, we should go straight at him.”

“Say what now?” Rhodey says.

“We go head on. He’s staring out the window; he’s already expecting you.”

“And removing the element of surprise is smart in your opinion why?”

“There’s no element of surprise. He’s probably ready for you.”

“Still, how is that any helpful?”

“Because,” MJ fills in, understanding something Tony clearly hasn’t caught on to, “he knows _you’re_ coming.”

“Give him exactly what he expects. One Iron Man, a nice surprising hint of War Machine, and no clue of the guy he beat up so badly he can’t even get off the bed right now. Poor Peter,” Ned concludes.

God, these kids intrigue him. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

“What floor you wanna be dropped off at?”

* * *

The sky above is a pale blue, one that looks like it’s bathed in all the light in world before rising this morning. It’s noticeably clearer than yesterday. There is not a white speck to be seen, nothing to interrupt the monumental beauty of the vast open plains above.

Nothing except the suddenly appeared men in flying suits ahead.

“Alright,” he speaks into his earpiece, “I have visual on Iron Man and War Machine. No sight of the other one. I want half of you focusing fire on them; the rest of you conduct full surveillance around the building. Focus on the windows and ceiling vents. They’ve come to put on their little show.”

There’s no sound on the other end, but Fisk knows for a fact that the order was received. He keeps his gaze on the specks of red and grey in front of him, never daring for his gaze to stray, not even when a high-pitched beeping emanates behind him, signalling a total lockdown of all the labs. He stares right at the growing dots, unmoving for one, two, three…

And then the bullets come in waves.

* * *

He can’t see a single thing. 

The bullets pour onto him like they’re coming from an endless supply, the repetitive pelting throwing him off balance as they scratch and dent his suit. Between the sound and the blinding white flashes at his visor, only accentuated by the constant, rapid tapping and shoving of the bullets against his armour, there’s no way he can take this guy down. Not even with Rhodey by his side. Not from this distance. He needs Peter to install the transmitter so that they can seal the exits. He just has to hold on for…

“FRIDAY,” he goes, “how long do we need to keep them busy?”

“Peter is _approximate-”_ she starts, before the same static buzz as the pizzeria overtakes her again, Tony’s screen fading in and out of focus. The bullets are still being pelted at him, an impenetrable wall of noise and light, but he trudges forward through them, fingers crossed at the fact that the kid he’s left behind knows what he’s doing.


	7. Chapter 7

_This is a terrible plan and everything hurts and he’s going to die before graduating and he should've listened to Tony and stayed in bed,_ is what takes up most of Peter’s thought process. He’s currently stuck in some sad sewage duct by the building’s underground parking lot, just a few feet away from what could very possibly be a combination of lethal chemicals. Come to think of it, he’s not sure how safe the fumes he’s inhaling are, either. He should probably crawl up faster. He would’ve, too, if every inch of him weren’t aching to collapse.

It’s dark down here, only the faint glow of scarcely placed fluorescent tubes emitting a greenish light through which Peter can make out certain vague shapes. The air smells of something heavy, acidic and salty at the same time, a scent that rises up to the bridge of his nose and burns a little. Though his mouth stays firmly shut, his throat starts feeling a little dry in a way that has nothing to do with a lack of hydration, and the inside of his ears sting with a tolerable but definitely distracting kind of pinch. His every movement is accentuated by a definite clenching of several sore muscles along his upper arms and thighs, and every so often he’ll make a wrong move and a sharp pain will shoot up from his ribs, causing him to hiss faintly at the sensation. 

“You’re close, Peter,” MJ says into his ear through the wireless piece every time she hears him, “You’re really close to the building’s entrance.”

“Ho-How close?” he whispers. 

“Your tracker’s just twenty-three feet away from the closest pipe connecting to a lab. Just twenty-three feet, Peter.”

“Twenty-three feet away,” he tell himself and takes another agonizing series of steps towards the direction MJ’s pointed him at. “Crawling is so-so much harder than walking.”

“You think?”

“Everything h-hurts. Is Ned still there?”

“Right next to me,” she assures, before: “Hey, dumbass, change your channel back to Peter’s.”

“I’m here,” booms his voice into Peter’s com immediately. “You good?”

“I can feel all 700 of my muscles,” he jokes. “How’s May?”

“Forcibly out with Pepper, still. No news from them, yet. You sure you’re good? I can tell the colonel to come help you out right away.”

“They’re alre-already doing their thing up th-there,” he says, taking another few steps forwards. Just a little under fifteen feet, now. “‘M good. Give it back to MJ. Go do your thing.”

“You sure?”

“Help the others, Ned.”

The line goes silent for a while, and Peter knows that Ned’s changed frequencies like he was told to. Now, whether Michelle tuned back in, or if she ever tuned out, is a mystery. He think of calling out for her as he takes a couple more steps, the tube he has to take into the building just out of his reach now, when he makes the crucial mistake of looking down.

Peter’s learned to control his fear of heights; he really has. He’s Spiderman, for heaven’s sake. It’s a part of his job. Sometimes, his breath will still hitch and his legs will still quiver on especially tall buildings, but otherwise, he’s learned to control himself, and well. Yet, as he accidentally chances a glance downward onto the flow of unidentified liquids just barely beneath him, he feels his entire body tremble with fear. The dark, sludge-like goo under him suddenly hardens into hard, dark concrete, and he swears he feels the distance between himself and the ground grow while he struggles to catch his breath. Peter closes his eyes, inhaling deeply, and makes a move to take his next step when someone grabs his arms, holding onto it as they hang off his body, their strange but unmistakable shouts of fear ringing through the tunnel. Eyes still pressed shut, Peter desperately shushes the person, but they keep yelling, their shouts growing more fearful, wilder by the second. Sweaty glove-clad hands hold onto the stranger’s and Peter risks a look down, blood freezing in his veins when he’s met with Turtleneck’s bloody, lifeless form hanging down from where their hands connect. He doesn’t know what to do. Does he pull him up? Does he drop him? _Did Turtleneck survive?_ Every thought he’s ever had suddenly makes its way to the forefront of his conscience, turning around in an incomprehensible hodgepodge of sounds Peter knows he should recognize but cannot seem to focus on, and now the concrete ground looks like it’s rising up to meet him, faster than it had gone down and Turtleneck’s body is gone and Peter’s hand is covered in blood and he can’t seem to breathe anymore and _Mr. Stark, please, please help me, please and--_

“Pete? Peter, do you need me to call Tony?”

“I killed him,” Peter chokes out, “I should’ve held on but he bit me and I was so surprised and he _died,_ MJ.”

“Who?”

“The-the guy Kingpin sent after me. The guy… the one with the turtleneck.”

“Peter, just a few steps more, okay? Just a few more and then you and I can talk about it, alright? You can do it, okay? Just-just count the steps, okay? Is that alright?”

“I killed him.”

“Peter, I’m telling Ned to put Tony on.”

“Don’t tell Ned.” 

* * *

“Is he alright?” Ned asks her, concerned. “I’m going to talk to him.”

“No,” she breathes, “He doesn’t want to tell you.”

The hurt on his face nearly shatters her, and all she can really do is place a hand on top of his in consolation. Wordlessly, he takes a step back, eyes still trained on her.

“Peter, just take a breath, okay?” she urgently whispers into her com, maintaining eye-contact with Ned. “Tell me what’s wrong. Ned won’t hear, I promise. He won’t hear.”

“He’ll hate m-me,” comes the reply within a dry sob, “Him and May, they’ll ha-hate me.”

“They could never, okay? Just talk to me.”

“I killed a guy.”

She doesn’t know how to react to that, exactly, but something about the fear, the _regret_ in his voice as he says it tells her all she needs to know about the subject. She _knows_ him. She _trusts_ him. She settles on helping him move. 

“Okay, now take a step.”

“I-I can’t.”

“One step, Peter.”

She hears grunting on the other end, and then silence.

“Okay, okay. One step.”

“Do you want to tell me anything else?” she tries. “Anything you want to say to me.”

“He… bit my arm. I was holding him and he bit me and I let go.”

“One more step.”

“He chose to do it.”

“Okay.”

“I should’ve saved him.”

“You couldn’t have.”

“We can’t save everyone.”

“Unfortunately not.”

“I’ll tell Ned once we’re all back home.”

“Ned would like that very much. You moving?”

“Y-yeah. Being a superhero is hard.” He’s breathing better now, albeit a little faster than she deems normal, but his voice has more substance to it, more cadence. It’s no longer a whisper.

“I know, Peter. I know.”

“I…” he starts, before pausing,and it’s like she can hear the adrenaline pumping through him when he says his next words: “I sort of like you.”

She stops breathing. Resumes. Smiles. Softly laughs. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“This is probably not the best way to say it.”

“It’s horrible, actually.”

“We’ll r-really talk about it? That’s something you wanna do?”

She inhales. Exhales. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s something I want to do, loser. Just-just do your thing and get back here and we’ll… discuss.”

Really, they will. It’s a conversation long overdue.

The line goes dead again, for a little longer this time, though Michelle swears she can hear his faint breathing. 

“I’m in.”

“Good. I’m proud.”

“Thanks.”

She smiles, though she knows he can’t see her, and throws Ned a relieved thumbs up.

* * *

He doesn’t know how long he stays huddled in that narrow tunnel, but it’s evident, once he manages to crawl out of it and into a restroom connected to one of the offices, that he missed quite a bit. The lights have been turned off around the establishment, save for the emergency bulbs at the end of every corridor, and there is a single man, occasionally a pair, maybe, roaming every accessible surface of the place. The first couple are subdued easily, going down before they could even react to his presence, and then there’s a trio that causes him trouble, but he manages to web their mouths shut before they can every spread the word, so he thinks he’s doing well enough, considering. 

He’s made it up to the third floor, now, the stupid disruptor Ned had given him to place inside the tower weighing heavy under his suit as he tries to find a suitable place to put it, out of enemy view.

He turns into a fairly secluded corridor and sees a man suspiciously walk out of a room before hurriedly closing the door, almost as if he knew that Peter’s prying eyes would be looking for whatever’s inside once he left the vicinity. He stops for a second, motionless, and it might be that Kingpin is saying something into their earpieces, because almost immediately afterwards, he scurries out the other end of the hallway, not even bothering to notice Peter weakly hiding behind a conveniently placed plant.

“Karen, is he out?”

“Activating Advanced Reconnaissance Mode,” her voice rings, and the images of a silhouette riding up the elevator play inside Peter’s mask. “He’s going up.”

“Nice,” he whispers, before tapping twice on his own earpiece. “MJ? You there?”

“Have been the whole time. What’s up?”

“Can you tell me what the room two doors down from me is?”

He hears her quietly hum in concentration, just like she ever so often does when actually having to think about something. “Oh, that’s their control room. That’s convenient. Electrical panels and camera feed and all that stuff.”

“Anything emitting a radio signal? Anything that would tamper with Tony’s suit?”

“Just their communication sets, as far as I can understand it. Let me put Ned on the line.”

“I’m not talking to him,” Ned’s voice rings loud and clear into the com, and Peter can practically see the pout he’s sporting. 

“Ned,” he hisses as quietly as he can manage it, “This is _not_ the time.”

“I’m mad at you.”

“I understand that.”

“You’re gonna tell me eventually, right?”

“As soon as we’re back home,” he promises, crawling closer to the room. “Is that a good place to put your disruptor?”

“It’s a great place to put it,” Ned replies enthusiastically. “They’ll never think of looking there. Okay, Peter, there are three guys in there. One of them seems to be coding something and the other two are watching the cameras. You just have to take them out and place the disruptor right under their table, okay? Then you can join Stark. I’ll take it from there.”

“Won’t they see me coming?”

“Be quick. Be effortless. Be invisible. Like a spider.”

He doesn’t dignify that with a reply, but rather simply crawls along the pale grey walls and gently reaches for the door’s handle in a vain attempt to push it open without being noticed. It slides with an embarrassing creak.?

They’re looking straight at him when he peeps his head into view, and he manages an awkward smile in return. 

“Hey guys!”

They unfortunately don’t seem to share his friendly sentiments, and he can almost feel it, the way one of them opens their mouths just slightly, like times slowed down just so that Peter can raise an arm and shoot a web at his face, shutting his mouth while he brings his other arm up and blasts the other two up against the wall - albeit more forcefully than he’d intended to.

“I’m not much of a fan of listening to others, if you get my drift. Much more of a straight-up talker. My best friend doesn’t seem to mind it, though.”

He flashes them a smile he knows they can’t see and pulls a chair out, taking a seat in front of one of the screens. “What am I doing?”

“Place it right there, anywhere in the room. I can get rid of cameras, radios, phones, WiFi… the whole lot. Anything connected to their server, I can shut down and extract. Then that’s it for me. We’ll have all the evidence we need against him.”

Peter nods and gets up, turning to the guys once more. “Sometimes I forget how smart nerds are. Don’t you? They’re pretty dope,” he says, “Also I’m going to have turn off the lights for a bit.”

He can see the beginnings of confusion build upon their faces, but it doesn’t last long. He rapidly shoots a web grenade above one of their heads, then another, and then one more until they can no longer see what he’s doing. Confident in the strength of his webs, knowing full well those guys have three hours to chill in there, he crouches down and places Ned’s weird device under the table, far behind a mass of wires he doesn’t have time to track the purpose of. 

“I’ll see you in a few!” he carefully whispers before exiting, making sure to shut the door as he makes his way to the staircase at the end of the hall. 

“Is that all you need?”

“Yep,” MJ says, “He’s working on it. You can go join the battle up. They’re both still up there, but it’s not looking too good. I think they’re messing with the suits.”

“Do I need to be subtle about it?”

“Not anymore,” she teases, “Go crazy, Tiger.” 

“‘M on it.”

And go crazy he does. Now, don’t get him wrong, Peter’s not entirely a big fan of vandalism, per se, and he’s sure that a lot of great work _does_ happen within the laboratories in this building -- Fisk Pharmaceuticals did make quite a name on the news, some while back -- but something about the fact that this big ol’ ugly guy had the galls to kidnap _his_ May and threaten her really does its job excusing the fact that he rams into the building’s glass windows, shattering them to pieces as he jumps out, immediately turning around and shooting a web to the metal framing about ten floors above. He swings over to where he can see two metal figures amongst a thousand flickering, smoking lights. He shoots a web again, this time much closer to the fire. Crawling up against the glass panels, thankful that Kingpin’s guys are basically useless and haven’t somehow seem him yet, he calls out for MJ again. 

“Hey, Michelle?” 

“Yep?”

“Are their coms still working?”

“Nope, both disconnected. If you get any closer, yours will be, too.”

“Is there anyway you think we can subdue them?”

“Subdue, no. Contain, probably.”

“Alright.” 

He crawls higher, closer to the thunderous show of gunshots and flare blasts. Watching the endless sea of men right above him bathing Tony and Mr. Rhodes in firelight. He takes a few steps closer, and there’s a sudden, long buzzing sound inside his mask while the data displayed at his retinas flashes on and off. He doesn’t try to call out for her; he knows MJ can no longer hear him.

He sighs. There’s no way he can get through to them without becoming a bullet-needle-cushion. He briefly contemplates going in and taking the guys down from behind, but there’s simply no way that would work. There’s one of him and so, so many of them. And with guns, no less. Seriously, how many pistols do these people have? Shouldn’t there be like a limit to it or something? This is just plain unfair. He pauses, thinks it through, thinks it through again, and slowly, carefully, begins crawling upwards. Does he have a plan? Absolutely not. Is he going to find a way to help Tony and Colonel Rhodes? You can bet all your collective asses. 

He’s still crawling when he sees the guy, the bastard in the goddamn blue suit whose eyes widen as he sees him, stuck to the window, and he’s much quicker than Peter is, pulling a gun out -- yeah, that’s right, _another_ gun -- and firing it like it’s second nature. 

That shouldn’t be second nature. These people are broken.

Time seems to slow down, then, for Spiderman. He sees the bullet coming, feels it by the way his brain flashes white again, as if the danger wasn’t obvious, but before he can make a move for it, the cursed piece of metal hits his body with a clang, piercing through the -- no, wait, _deflected_ by the suit. 

Oh. _Oh._ Tony had apparently forgotten to mention this. This makes his job so much easier. This is epic. He loves this. He is so over the moon right now. He should probably go help out.

Wordlessly, he shoots a single web at the guy, trapping him against the wall behind him, and runs straight into the fire. The repeated assault feels like it’s hailing, but sideways and _harder,_ somehow, but he does _already_ have bruised -- or broken, most likely broken -- ribs, a swollen sternum, a burning lip, a stinging hip, and a pretty bad fear of ceilings, and it all helps him numb out the pain as he swings close to Tony and kicks him out of the way the bullets are pouring.

“There!” he yells, “now you can see!”

He can’t hear Tony call him names, but he likes to think there are several inventive ones coming out of his mouth as he hurriedly increases the power of his thrusters, painfully pushing through the gunfire to knock a bunch of guys out.

Immediately, he feels himself being yanked upward and out of the fire’s path, and with a quick glance upward sees Colonel Rhodes pull him out with a firm gauntlet to the shoulder.

“He didn’t need saving,” his somewhat godly voice reverberates. “That was a window for you to sneak in from the back.”

Oh, you’ve got to be kidding him. 

“It wasn’t very obvious!” he yells back.

“I don’t know, he probably thought you’d get it.”

Well, no point in dwelling on it now. Peter quickly scans the scene, vision still compromised by the dozens of bullets showering over him and Mr. Rhodes like they’re for free, and turns back towards him. 

“Okay, here’s the plan: we go in, seal every exit on and off the level. Try to keep the fight as contained as possible.”

“They’re open firing out a glass wall!”

“Then we go in and make sure they don’t anymore. If we can keep ‘em all close, it’ll be easier to knock ‘em out than to just shoot back from here.”

Even amidst the flashing white lights all around him, he sees the Colonel nod above him and they charge forward to join Tony. He shoots a web out that grapples onto some steel framing above the now-shattered glass and propels himself out of Mr. Rhodes’ grasp, landing a solid kick to some baddie’s face on his way in. He can no longer make out any sound other than a hundred startled gasps, shouts, and grunts that envelop him from every side and angle, and it’s just now that he realizes the extent to which his suit usually aids him in trying to focus.

It’s hard to concentrate on any one person and/or thing, so he does what he does best -- winging it. Or, more specifically, _webbing_ it. He can see Tony and Mr. Rhodes doing their part thing in his periphery, and once he’s sure he’s deflected enough of the traffic from the windows, he turns his back towards the men, and stares at the giant hole where beautiful glass panes used to be. He shoots one, two, three, four, five web grenades, barricading the floor level from the inside and only giving it the occasional pause when a dude or two try to shoot their shot at him. 

By the end of it, his ribs still sting, his breathing is heavy an abnormal amount, and there is no longer any light filtering through to the now obscure corridor, but with his two allies sealing the remaining exits with nanites, there’s only so much Kingpin and his men can do against them. They’re bulletproof and away from citizens. There’s basically no threat. 

And then there is. There’s, you know, the guy who’s basically the reason for all of this. The big bald guy? The guy who beat Peter to a pulp just two nights ago? Yeah, him, Kingpin. He’s coming his way, and he looks real angry, and he’s got a fist up now and --

“Pete, for God’s sake, taser web!” Tony’s voice manages to reach him from amidst the chaos, and Peter does as he’s told, shooting the guy’s face as if on instinct, watching him as he trembles slightly at the contact, pushed back a couple feet with the impact of the shot. But he manages to get up, veins bulging as he tries to get the sticky substance off him. Peter doesn’t miss a beat; he shoots another web, this time at his right arm, and then one to his left, pushing him back with every strike. With every web, he grows bolder, shooting to cover every part of the guy’s ginormous body before he can recover, you know, just in case he’s strong enough to get through the first five. Some guys come at him during the process, but other than the occasional bang at his back and that one guy who had a hand on the back of his neck before Tony yanked him away -- _bless his poor soul_ \-- it’s no longer a challenge to make his way through the crowd.

When he’s sure that the old man is secured against the wall, his hands unable to reach or call for for anything, he joins his mentors in trapping, immobilizing, or knocking out those of the men still standing.

It takes a couple more minutes of shooting, grunting, yelling, and deflecting, but eventually, they manage to immobilize them all. The room seems almost eerily quiet in comparison to its roaring sounds just a few moments ago, though his mask’s still buzzing, and other than Tony, the colonel, and himself, no man n the room is able to move a muscle.

“So,” Tony starts, looking right at Peter, “what do we do with them?”

“Why -- what, you’re asking me?”

“Your guy, your call,” he says. “We should have everything we need to incarcerate him back home, if that’s what you want to do. We can also strap him up and ship him to Wyoming. I wouldn’t personally encourage killing, but that’s also an option.”

“No one is killing anybody.” “I know, but it’s good to give the kid options.”

“Can we lock him up but make sure his businesses still run?”

They both stare at him like he’s said the most unexpected thing, and Mr. Rhodes actually takes a few steps towards him while Tony looks at him with what could either be pride or dumbfoundedness, he can’t tell. He likes to think it’s a bit of both.

“We don’t know who inherits his company, but if someone decent does, then possibly.”

“Can-can we try to do that? I mean, he might be a giant douche, but he _is_ doing some pretty amazing stuff for people like me.”

“What do you mean, ‘people like you?’”

“You know… people who aren’t billionaires.”

Whatever Tony might have wanted to say stays lodged in his throat, because _of fucking course_ Peter would think this way. _Of course_ he’d think of the people Fisk’s work benefits over the fact that he almost _died_ at his hands less than two nights ago. _Of course._

“We’ll hash out the details later,” he finally says. “Let’s get these guys locked up first. Rhodey, call Ross.”

* * *

The holding cells are dark and blue in more than just the literal sense. They reek of sadness and isolation. They smell like dollar-brand Dettol. And, you know, they’re scary. 

Peter’s probably not supposed to be here, but no explicit orders to keep out were given, so he’s not _not allowed._ He slowly makes his way past the army of former blue-suit-guys, now stripped down to a white t-shirt and ugly beige pants. Some of them seem like they’re practically growling at him when he walks by, but others seem… unbothered. Relieved, maybe. Worried. Confused. _Grateful._

He makes his way to the end of the large room, watching Kingpin’s back against the glass. They’ve found his heirs, his wife and his 17 year-old son William, but the call that was made turned up no response. Tony and Ross are still trying. How successful they’ll be, no one can tell.

“You’re not a bad guy, you know,” Peter says to the huge man’s back, startled when he turns around immediately. Even held captive, he exudes power, like raindrops ask for permission before landing on him and birds stop singing when he walks by. His posture is immaculate, and if Peter subconsciously tries to imitate it, then that’s no one’s business but his. “I know you were trying to do good things.”

“You don’t understand anything about me, Spiderman.”

“Peter is fine,” he weakly says, “and I do know. You’re trying to help the little guy. You’re doing exactly what Tony is.”

“Tony Stark is nothing like I am!” he roars, banging his fists on the glass that separates them, and Peter takes several steps back at the scare. “He has _power_ and _money._ He throws around his toys in the name of charity and lets people worship him! And for what? For stopping _one_ gunman a day? Thousands of people die here every day, Spiderman. The only way to stop this injustice is to strip those with too much power of that which they can hold over others. Your Tony Stark does the opposite.”

“He believes in second chances.”

“And I believe in change. Tony Stark is but a puppeteer, playing the entire world at the tug of his strings. He knows no kindness. He would never give his satin slippers to a homeless man. His solution to violence is to arm the other guy. _Can’t you see, Spiderman?_ He is spinning web upon web of lies. He is no savior.”

A subtle anger boils through Peter, rising within him like a storm contained within his body, and still, he manages to keep his composure and his voice steady as he addresses him:

“But neither are you.”

“I have dedicated my entire life to bringing this city to its full potential.”

“I’ve known you a week and you’ve abducted three people.”

“A small price to pay for growth.”

“No!” Peter finds himself yelling, “No! It’s not a _price,_ it’s _people!_ People are not some sort of… collateral damage! You can’t use them like little chess pawns and drop them when they’re no longer needed! That’s- _that’s_ the difference between you and Tony. You both want the same thing, but at least he has the decency to find _worth_ in people. To make them feel like he cares whether they live or die. _That’s_ what builds a city that functions. People who feel like they’re being given what they deserve. Not some _bully_ like you!”

“I am not a bully!”

“Well,” Peter says, taking a deep breath and stepping backward, “you’re no hero.”

He turns around and makes his way to the exit, ignoring the captive men’s looks of awe as he dashes past them. He shouldn’t have come here. Kingpin won’t change. Kingpin doesn’t _really_ care. He’s blinded by rage Peter will never understand. Peter keeps walking, shoving the disappointment building within him down with every step. _Why had he come here? What is he trying to achieve?_ At the door, before leaving, he pauses, swallows, and looks back just once. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t understand you. And I’m sorry your family couldn’t, either.”

_Why does he feel so guilty about this?_

* * *

He doesn’t see Kingpin after that. He’s shipped off to some other facility, as are his men. Peter doesn’t know much else about it. 

They try contacting his family for two months to no avail. Without someone to run it, all of Fisk Enterprises was seized by the bank, but Tony and Mr. Rhodes have since then made a proposal to make the businesses public. Peter gave them both a hug when they first told him, a couple weeks ago, though they refuse to share any other information regarding the case until a definitive verdict is reached. He guesses he’s alright with that. 

May, for her part, surprisingly does not forbid him from carrying on being Spiderman like he feared she would. She’s still a little worried, yes, and maybe leaning slightly more toward the neurotic side than she ever has before, but Peter can excuse that. If anyone has the right to coddle him, it’s her. He understands that. What he _doesn’t_ understand is the sudden change of behaviour in Tony. Tony, who calls him a lot more often. Tony, who’ll occasionally pick him up after school if they have somewhere to be right after. Tony, who hugs him more and messes his hair up a whole lot. Once, when he was really tired, Peter swears he heard him say he loves him. It’s an unusual side he gets to see of him, though not an unwelcome one. Quite the opposite, really. This Tony, Peter thinks, might just be his favourite one. He’s very helpful, very present.

He told Ned and May about Turtleneck. They do not hate him. Instead, when he confessed, they held him tight and sandwiched him between them on the couch as the three of them watched The Godfather and awfully tried to recite scenes as they were playing. 

He and Michelle had their talk, too. It was awkward for the first few seconds, a series of shy confessions and awkward jokes and hands that didn’t know where to place themselves, but then she kissed him and asked if he wanted to grab sandwiches from Delmar’s new shop. Things went significantly better after that. (Except when Ned found out. The teasing _still_ hasn’t ended. Peter’s no longer sure it ever will.)

All in all, he guesses, it all ended up pretty alright.

* * *

“Welcome, Peter,” FRIDAY’s voice greets like it always does, and Peter throws a wink and nod at the air before running in and reaching for the picture frames that Pepper had had put up after MJ, of all people, had once said that they would help liven the place up. He reaches for his bag and unzips it, finding the cutouts he’s looking for and pulling them out, a roll of scotch tape ready to be used. “Will you be staying tonight?”

He’s taken to sleep over at the tower a lot more often, too. May and Pepper will occasionally spend a Ladies’ Night, but most often, it’s just him helping Tony in the workshop or watching documentaries with Pepper late at night and deciding to make use of his bedroom. (He’s had MJ there a couple of times, and once, when Tony caught them, he lowered his gaze and mumbled something about “be safe” and “I’ll need Michelle’s prints so she has access.”)

“Nah, not tonight,” he answers. “I’ve got to go to the movies with Ned tonight. I just had something to take care of.”

“Well, I believe Mr. Stark would enjoy your presence in the workshop soon. He’s working on your suit.”

“I’ll come tomorrow if I can,” he says, and, a few minutes later, putting the roll of tape back in his bag, sprints out.

* * *

He gets the call as soon as leaves the theatre, and, fighting his urge to laugh, he picks up.

_“Peter, I swear to God, did you just place cutouts of Shrek’s face over every picture of me in the common lounge?”_

Peter lets his laugh escape him, holding onto Ned as he doubles over. What he should’ve said and didn’t is: “Just wait until you hear your alarm clock tomorrow.”

(Never in his life had Tony ever pictured himself waking up at five in the morning to the sound Smash Mouth. Oh, that boy is _so_ done now.)

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, where do I start? 
> 
> First and foremost, my amazing betas @JolinarJackson and @Shoyzz, without whom you'd be reading a typo-riddled, nonsensical mess. I owe you both so much. Thank you for calling out my plot bunnies and correcting my dumb continuity mistakes. 
> 
> @Meep_Morp: Josh, you're still evil, but thank you so much for the help and inspiration. You were always a nudge in the positive direction throughout the completion of this fic. I've learned so much.
> 
> @captainkirkmccoy: Brianna! You were the birth of this fic. You helped me when it was just a little more than a concept and gave me the strength to keep writing it. Thank you. 
> 
> To the writers in the discord chat that I will not individually name, because I'm sure I'll forget someone and even if I don't, the list is too long. Thank you for teaching me, supporting me, and laughing with me. I've learned more from you than you know, and I will carry the lessons with me forever, whether it be about the NYC subway system, how to make the perfect caffeinated drink, or simply for reminding me why I write in the first place. I am grateful. I hope to work with you again.
> 
> To my artists!  
> The lovely, lovely Taylor whose art is also available here.  
> And the amazing Pandi, whose work you can see here.
> 
> And last, but not least, @parkrstark for putting this all together and giving all of us this wonderful opportunity to share what we love with all of you. If you're loving these fics and their art like I know for sure I am, head over to her tumblr and let her know. She deserves it. 
> 
> Hope you didn't barf :)


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